Erotophobia
by Vanya-Deyja
Summary: The GF has a lot of clean up to do after Hiltz. Raven and Van partner up and knuckle down together when things start to pick up again. It's gonna hurt. V/R
1. Chapter 1

AN: Hey Lovelies. As promised a brand, spanking, new Van/Raven story for you all. Starts a little lazy but let me assure you by Chapter 5 (trust me on this) you're going to _wish_ I was slowing down. Will be updating weekly until the University exam period stirs me up again and then weekly updates resume once that's over.

Warnings: yaoi, dark themes, terrible jokes and characters who swear like sailors when the mood strikes them. If that doesn't sound like your cup of tea feel free to jump ship now but it was lovely having you.

* * *

Chapter 1: _We All Fall Down_.

Anyone who's ever had anything to do with teamwork knows that some people are better partners than others. Generally there's not much of a difference when the roster gets switched up at least not after all the dust of '_oh look something new!_' settles. Thomas and Raven weren't monumentally different travel companions, sure, but one of them was definitely more hazardous to Van's health. Thomas for one thing would never decide that suffocation was a great cure for Van's snoring. Thomas would never shove a bundled pair of socks into his mouth while he was sleeping and leave him to die or wake coughing and spluttering. Raven would, Raven definitely would, and Raven would laugh his ass off about it in the morning.

So Van lurched, hacking up what remained of his lungs, when the in a deep inhale the socks lodged themselves down his throat. He'd been gaged before, it wasn't pleasant, and once he could breathe without pounding his chest he sagged forward into his knees. He worried his face with the heel off his palm and spluttered up the last of his peaceful night. Wonderful, if this happened two more times he was going to start insisting Raven take the second watch from now on.

He was scratching at the back of his scalp (was that dandruff or did he just need a shower?) kicking Zeke's slumping body back with his bare feet before he got a good look over the camp. The fire was still going which at least saved him the obligation of hopping around for more tinder in the cold. Shadow was curled round the darker side of the clearing, head up, optics flashing looking like a mounted snake head as he keep his sensors keen.

"Fucking creepy," Van yawned which inspired a twitch in the tightly wound muzzle, "where's you hero murdering master eh?"

Shadow growled that low unhappy sound, breathy, heave swivelling round the clearing off towards the far side of the Gustav loaded up with their equipment from the last mission. Logic dictated that Raven was taking a piss, Van intuition argued otherwise and Van won out. So forcing himself up onto his feet he hobbled barefoot and stiff over the undergrowth round the far side of the trailer.

Raven was sitting on the edge of the second trailer leaning into the foot lock of the Geno Breaker, one ankle under the opposing knee, the second leg swinging, half dressed and partially lit from the glow of his cellphone.

"What you doing up?" Van didn't bother to announce himself hooking his arm on the edge of the trailer and leaning heavily into it. "Another nightmare?"

Raven grunted distantly in response, thumb pattering over the keypad, index and forefinger rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He yawned after a moment slipping the little device shut like a girl's compact as Van rose his hackled in a cold breeze.

"Texting Reese," Raven murmured, "couldn't sleep."

"Do you ever sleep?" Van joked easily resting his chin across his forearms.

"Something's bothering me about the map."

"From the mission?" The hero gave a little jerk of his chin. "Think someone's feeding us bad Intel?"

"No," Raven whispered heavily, "just doesn't look right. It's too artificial. You're sure no one's got a facility out here?"

"Oh?" Van murmured twisting on the spot to lean his back into the Gustav and regard the horizon Raven was scrutinizing through a gap in the trees they'd made in their lumbering.

"That ridge just…" Raven's pinkie finger traced along the line of it trying to demonstrate more eloquently what he couldn't vocalise. "It's too straight, too square, it doesn't fall right."

Van frowned. He didn't ever try to blow anyone off. He'd learnt a long time ago that he had some talented friends with some talented instincts and it paid in this business to pay attention. He followed the curve of Raven's fingers to the best of his ability and tilting his head slowly he caught the gist of it. Raven was right. There was something unnatural in the slope of the landscape flowing out around them. Maybe it was just because Van had spent enough time squatting in the wild to know but, sure enough, the shapes were too well cut to be solely the product of erosion and time. There seemed to be structure hidden underneath the roots and the overgrown trees that might have consumed something over decades or centuries.

"You're right," he whispered lowly, "ruin maybe?"

"Facility even," Raven suggested mildly, "you got a plan?"

"Almost dawn," he appraised, pleasantly surprised to be deferred to. When they were this quiet in the darkness he almost felt like they were a pair of hunters following game or trails. There was this sort of primal mysticism to the atmosphere that Van was usually loud enough to dispel. "Good a time as any to take a look. I'm going to get my boots."

"Grab mine?" Raven requested pivoting over his shoulder to dig in the bag propped behind him.

"Sure," Van found himself moving slowly, quieter than was strictly necessary but when Raven got a scent like this he often found himself tense. Last time it had been an unexpected storehouse of sleepers. It was probably why Karl had put Raven with him for the clean-up, ignoring the fact Van was one of a handful who would consent to work with him, Raven had a good sense for hidden things like the kind Hiltz and Prozen had left scattered over the planet. The facilities they'd yet to find and disarm were dangerous dump heaps stuffed with arms, chemicals and pollutants. It'd probably take another ten years of scouring to flush them all out.

Van handed Raven his boots, shifting his bare feet into the comfortable grove worked into his own, his dad's knife cold against the small of his back after sitting by him all night and his badge felt heavy in his thin pants. Raven was zipping a thin black jacket from the back pack up tight under his chin, balancing a flashlight in his fingers, a gun ready to his side.

"Zeke up?" Raven gauged as he slipped into his boots dragging them up over his sleeping pants.

"Yeah, Shadow too," Van muttered rolling his shoulders to try and limber up from the stiffness of sleeping on the cold ground. Things like this usually ended in them running like lunatics. "Take the Zoids?"

"It'll make more noise than it's worth."

Van grunted in consent gauging the crunch of the Organoids as they rustled round the fire packing earth onto it with their tails. They'd follow behind given it usually worked better for the element of surprise if the enemy didn't know you had two seven foot monsters tailing you. Better to keep the cards close to the chest as Irvine would say.

Raven took a swig from the canteen, slow but deep, and offered it to Van. He tipped it back taking the rest of the water. Was worth being a little hydrated, after all they might be fifteen minutes or they might be six hours (both of which had happened in the last six months working alongside). Raven slipped down off the Gustav, legs board straight, arms taunt along the forearm as he shifted the weight from his elbows to his feet. Imaginations were running a little wild it was true but it didn't hurt to be quiet and suspicious at the best of times.

It was a vulnerable feeling to manuver down the slope with the Organoids out of sight, the dawn creeping in, the crickets dying off and the breeze picking up. Van slipped towards the end of the drop hands digging into the frosty grass, nails in the dirt, and Raven caught his elbow tight in thin fingers to keep him from making an uncomfortably loud cracking sound that would've stirred the birds overhead just starting to twitter. Raven made a gesture along the gully either way and Van gave a shrug hooking his thumb in the general direction of Raven's wrong ridge. He was content enough to follow for now, encourage those instincts in his short time partner, long-time rival, that often held water.

'_You're good to go along with him,_' Reese had assured Van recently, '_he doesn't trust himself lately._'

Raven shimmed deftly up the opposing slope to follow his ridge and Van watched him move for a moment or three before he took pursuit. Watching Raven clamour up the slope gave him a good gauge of where would take his stocky build best and where they were heading. They were most of the way up, Raven trying to heave himself over the ledge which was far too close to a ninety degree angle to be hand carved by mother nature, when Van hugged the side and pushed his shoulder up under Raven's straining foot. The Imperial glanced down at him curiously and Van nodded the all clear. So digging the tip of his boot into the grove of Van's shoulder Raven pushed off him up over the top. Raven returned the favour a moment later when he helped drag Van up with both hands.

Van took a deep breath through his nose, almost sweating, and Raven's boot ground into the surface under them. Definitely stone, he tilted his chin to Van and rubbing his fingers under the leaf litter Van felt how smooth it was. He flashed Raven a grin and they were back up on their feet fingering the wall of the new ledge for grooves, passage ways, unnatural nooks…

Van found a strange curve under a vine and pushed his hand down the smooth, wet, tunnel in the mountain side. His arm disappeared up to the elbow, ear against the stone of what had to be another submerged wall, and his fingers caught something at the bottom. Van twisted one way, Raven coming close to his side, then tried the other. There was a groaning click to their right, like a door unbolting and Van exhaled.

"No snakes," he laughed softly pulling his hand free, "you heard that?"

"Over here," Raven followed the wall, looking for new cracks they eventually worked wide.

After a good ten minutes of heaving and panting they had a channel exposed, a passage way down into the mountain side that from the initial sweep of the flashlight was clean, smooth and dark. It seemed to slope down a good hundred feet because the passage didn't turn within the reach of the flashlight's beam.

"You good to go?"

"Yeah," Van whispered, "you're not claustrophobic are you? Cause this is your last chance to warn me."

"Nope."

"You want to take the lead or guard the rear then?"

"Lead," there was no surprise there in Raven's preference but it was nice on some level to know he trusted Van to cover their backs.

It was surprisingly humid the further down they got. Van was used to chilly ruins and stagnant laboratories but the heat as they moved deeper and deeper through the channels was surreal. Before too long Raven was tying his jacket round his waist and Van batting the sweat off his forehead;

"This shit goes forever." Van hissed.

"If we run out of batteries we're fucked." Raven warned. "Ever been lost in the catacombs under Guylos?"

"Once or twice. Rather not do it again. Turn round?"

"Give it another ten? We find nothing we ditch and report it back to HQ."

"Deal," Van relented, raising his flashlight higher as they fell back into silence. He could hear Zeke and Shadow following them well behind but there was something whooshing almost under the slapping sound of their feet. "You hear that?"

Raven paused, barely breathing and scanned the darkness.

"Sounds like pumps." He breathed. "Like water."

"It's not far off."

"Let's keep going."

Van's fingers scrapped the wall and eventually he could feel the space widen. Raven's pace slowed till Van was almost hugging his back, when the sound of rushing water and mechanical cycling started to pound around them and when soft blue light began emerging from round the next corner the flashlights were switched off. It was very sudden when they found themselves on the gangway over the tanks glowing up at them and Van whistled low despite himself.

"Holy shit," he sighed, "Zoid tanks."

Raven's head did a soft swivel.

"Six," he decided, "You could fit the Breaker in these."

"Hiltz' handiwork work," Van supposed as he raised his flashlight once again and flicked the light over the nearest wall, "or Zoidian maybe?"

Raven came close to his shoulder examining the raised hieroglyphs and delicate mosaic paint work of the walls that stretched over their head to a domed ceiling.

"Zoidian I'd guess. Hiltz wouldn't bother with interior decorating."

"Think the gangway can take us?" Van clicked off the flashlight lazily glancing along the long stretch further into the ruin.

"If it's Zoidian definitely, if it's Hiltz' probably," Raven snorted, "come on."

It became fairly obvious fairly fast that they were alone. The place, even though it was still working turning over amniotic fluid in the tanks, was as dead as the grave. Zeke and Shadow caught up quickly enough and with the Organoids mingling Van felt more guarded. Dr D would've had a heart attack if he could have seen how inquisitive the four of them got. Raven and Van were into and on top of everything. They had the good sense to be delicate with what seemed to warrant it but less so with everything else. When they found what had to be an office of some description overlooking a massive tank Van had the good fortune to come across a set of scrolls.

"Definitely Zoidian," he decided, "no way would Hiltz leave these behind."

"The more we look around the more I think it's a production plant." Raven murmured running his flashlight over the far wall. "Submersion tanks to grow new frames, electronic vessels for mutating and forming cores, masses of steel for armour production and those," he gestured with the bud of his flashlight, "look like blueprints."

"Blueprints?" Van pivoted to take up the spot beside Raven and follow the patterns himself. The pair of them stepped back and raised their beams trying to get as much of the picture under the light as possible. Then structures became more apparent.

"See that?" Raven shot the beam to highlight a particular section of wall. "Looks kind of like a charged particle converter. See the fan unit?"

"Hey…" He sighed straining, "you're right! And that's a triple canon unit!"

"Spear launchers," Raven recounted his flashlight straying, "chest unit, charged particle head mount, and that looks like the hip pivots they use to keep tripod Zoids upright…"

"Check this out," Van called, "claws, big ones, you think?"

"Aren't many Zoids with these specs." The other rued darkly.

"Blueprints for the Death Surer huh? You think they made it here?"

"An early one," Raven supposed, "this one's got a cockpit."

"I don't like the sound of that."

* * *

Raven fell asleep in the cockpit of the Gustav, canopy open, boots on the dash while Van sat back with his hands behind his head waiting for Dr D to show up with a crew. Herman had a lot on his plate these days after taking over for Kruger and looking at his Mom's seat in the not too distant future but Van and Raven probably didn't help calling in every other day with some new variable to fuck up his paperwork. Van grinned up at the obscured sun through the trees and took in the deep satisfaction of making bureaucracy hellish. This was why he didn't put himself up to be a four star general. Making a living as a loose cannon trailing a wild card Imperial was way more fun.

Irvine would be so pissed they'd found something exciting while he and Thomas were dragging rubble at _New_ New Helics. Van suspected if he gave Irvine another two months he'd become a raging alcoholic. Thomas was a nice guy, brilliant, but Irvine had trouble working with the finicky sort who made you tighten your boot straps. That sort was usually good incentive to keep Van focused whereas Irvine needed a little shaking up to stop himself from becoming to dried up and stoic.

"Hey Raven," he didn't nudge the Imperial with the canteen perched in his hand, he liked his hand after all and he didn't want to lose it. "How about a hotel tonight? Proper bed for ya."

"Hnn," was the grumble he got, which was code for"_I could care less_."

"Hot shower, home cooked meal, a beer." Van tempted.

"Make it a bath."

"You got yourself a deal." It might cost them a mint but such were the sacrifices Van made for a decent meal. Most desert places charged by the litres of water you used, had special meters and everything, Van and the crew used to have to shower together every other day to keep to Moonbay's budget but hopefully in this region they'd be slacker on their usage fees.

The first hint they caught of the approaching unit was Specula's hissing down the track which raised the heads of the two Organoids lulled stubbornly on the open canopy. Zeke decided to promptly dodge out of view under the leg of the Liger while Shadow bounced down off to meet the blue Zoid rushing round the bend. Van snorted and Raven half dragged himself up in his seat wiping at his eyes in a lazy attempt to freshen himself up. If Van were a lesser man he might've felt jealous that Raven made no effort to look proper when they were alone, like Thomas did, but actually he found it quite flattering that neither of them had the energy or that invisible separation which prompted people to act with special effort for each other. That and he found it kind of cute when Raven straightened up for Reese in the same way Raven shoved Van for tightening his belt round Fiona and putting on what the Imperial begrudgingly declared the '_big brother_' voice.

"Morning sunshine!" Van called jovially from his slouch.

Reese gave a little gesture in his general direction, still a good three meters off, and he couldn't quite tell if she was flashing him the bird or waving. Raven was already stiff backed, raising his hand, and Van took the chance to watch how cat like the pair of them got around each other from the corner of his cheeky chocolate eyes.

"So how much did you touch?" Reese condemned hopping unceremoniously onto the front snout of the Gustav.

"As much as him," Van scoffed with a jerk of his thumb to his partner.

"So the whole bloody place is compromised." She declared flippantly but Raven gave one of his tiny smirks that provided Van with confirmation that this was his cue to chuckle. Van always went off his cues round these two because frankly he was still worried one of them was going to cut his head off with a butter knife. Reese didn't mind his laughing this time, a good sign, and turned her attention to Raven, sniffing. "You look dreadful."

"So do you." He shot tightly.

"You been fucking the dog all night or something?" For a petite girl Reese was crass. She was one of only two women Van knew who could make Irvine whistle in amazed defeat. Then Van realized Reese meant him and gave a little shout.

"_Oi!"_ He screeched.

"You're just pissed because you and Fiona didn't get a chance to braid your hair and paint your nails this morning." Raven retorted to the woman hands folded over his lap smugly.

Van could never quite tell when they were play fighting or _actually_ fighting. Half the time Reese or Raven threw up their hands and stomped off and the other half of the time they broke into knowing little smirks. He put it down to bad guy brain damage.

"No Dr D on this one?" Raven supposed a moment later.

"Too busy around Eveopolis, besides," Reese gave an elegant little gesture over herself unhappily, "Death Zoids are my speciality right?"

"Better you than Dr D's grimy hands in the pie." The Imperial consoled. "I hope you didn't bring any greedy techies it's a horror house in there, very creepy, Death Surer stink everywhere."

"Oh joy," she scoffed, "little evil mastermind's first play set?"

"Something like that," Raven decided and Van gave a hardy nod in agreement. "You want us to stick around?"

"Nah, clear out," the gesture she made now was very dismissive, "you've been on shift for what two weeks? Go take a break, report to Herman, _shower-"_Van held up his hands in surrender under the pointed stare,-stop hugging each other for three minutes and take a piss by yourselves."

"We're not _that _bad." Van declared.

"Pfft," Reese hissed, "Herman puts you together and I had money down that eyes would be clawed out. Then you bugger off together and no one else gets a word in between you two workaholics since. Your bloody inseparable friendly thoughts are making me faint. Go sleep with girls."

"Should get a few pointers off you first," Raven teased reaching up to tug at the hem of her tunic, "don't work your grunts too hard Bitch."

Reese flashed him the bird with both hands, smiling tightly, and Van let them bicker. It was their favourite joke since Reese moved to Ancient Ruins and Raven back to active duty on the GF that they were too gooey with their respective rivals. Apparently they found homosexuality hilarious fodder. Personally, while Van was a loose kind of guy on that thing and definitely not one to toss round judgements, he thought the old saying '_a lot of truth is said in jest_' might've applied just a little. Certainly to Reese from what he'd seen of her recent, rather stumped, dealings with Fiona. The Zoidian didn't seem to know what to do when someone was sweet with her and Fiona was nothing if not sweet. Raven insisted once or twice to Van that Fiona downed all that salt to balance out all the sugary sweetness in her system.

"Yeah princess," she snorted kicking out at Raven's hand weakly, "where are you two off to then?"

"Report to Herman and hit a hotel," Van answered to her sweeping glance, "I'm fucking starving."

"You enjoy that double bed." Reese cackled leaping from the dash as Raven lunged out at her. "Don't be too rough with our delicate little flower Flyheight!"

"Withered cantankerous old bitch!" Raven called brazenly after her as she clicked her fingers to summon Specula and waved them off.

"Call us if you find something good!" Van demanded prepping the ignition while the pair of them shot nasties at each other across the glade like screeching alley cats on opposing fences.

Raven was still half out of the cockpit, calling things in Zoidian Van didn't want to know the translations for, when Van lowered the canopy and got them moving sluggishly down the road. Why he'd agreed to take a damn Gustav he didn't know. The things were so damn slow. Maybe it was nostalgia?

"We're ditching this when we get to resupply, right?" Raven prodded, apparently on the same wavelength, reclining back beside him.

"Maybe," Van shrugged, "it's not so bad. I mean there's more space for supplies, means we can take shifts sleeping and driving, pretty comfy…"

"You're attached," he groaned, "fine! Then wake me in an hour when you're done loving your new pal."

"Beautiful romance me and this Gustav." Van shot proudly voice delightfully straight. "She's growing on me, flourishing into an amazing bond it is, I'm going to call her Lulu and ride off into the sunset with her."

"You do that."

* * *

Van felt a bit much like a cowboy. Moonbay always said there were times when you had to reign in the whole thing and sleep barefoot rather than booted or girls just thought you were scruffy. The hotel wasn't as expensive as he had feared at least and Raven was good at covering tips with that dangerously massive inheritance he'd pocketed after Rudolf had ripped up Prozen's estate. So he forfeited the bath to Raven, ate well, watched the news, sent a few emails and crashed in one of the double beds.

He would've slept the whole night through if Raven wasn't sneaking around. There was no other word for it. Raven pulled himself up halfway through the night, cradling his phone into the lounge, and had pulled the sliding door almost all the way while he thought he'd left Van sleeping. Van rolled onto his back, breathing steady, and stared dumbly at the ceiling. There was the mashing of buttons, Raven twisting on his feet, then low whispers.

"You might as well talk," Raven hissed softly, "if you're going to keep insisting it you better have the goods to prove it. So talk. I don't like being pushed around."

Silence, Van had no chance of making out the other end of the phone call but Raven's breathing hitched audibly even so far away. Another moment passed, Raven made half attempts to speak cut off progressively before finally fighting through.

"Then why should I trust you?" He was still feverish. "Who says you're not still infected?"

_Woah!_ Van cringed. His immediate immature thought pattern was '_Reese STDs_' but he moved beyond that because it didn't sound that minor given the octave of Raven's voice. Still, infected? What did he mean by that?

"Yeah you were right about the ruin," Raven conceded uneasily and Van almost sat up, frowning hard at the pale blue ceiling. "Still doesn't prove this crap though… then show me… fine, but if you're fucking with me I swear he was silenced again. His little informant was pushy obviously and there was a long moment of silence before Raven spoke very tightly"Yeah, whatever…bye."

Van had to twist fast, make himself limp, when Raven threw himself back into the bedroom tossing himself down and leaving the phone rattling across the floor, discarded, scarping the woodwork. Van kept his eyes tight, tossed a little this way, let the quiet settle and tried to work it through his head. Raven tugged at the blankets harshly across the room and Van was very aware how sensitive the pair of them were to signals. He did not want to get caught eavesdropping when the Imperial was this…upset? Frustrated? He couldn't read it. Not good. Van breathed into his limbs and made them uncoil while Raven twitched awkwardly in the other bed.

Eventually Raven gave up and Van caught a stolen glimpse of him glaring at the ceiling before the Imperial tossed back the blankets and delicately placed himself on the edge of Van's mattress. He waited and, sure enough, Raven pressed himself down onto Van's bed like he wanted to crush his face in the opposing pillow and stay there. Van let him, he would've given him a brotherly word or two if he wasn't trying so hard to play dead, but the Imperial shuffled his body marginally closer atop the blankets, while Van lay under them, and started to slowly and angrily lull off.

Definitely wasn't Reese Van decided but he'd have to tread lightly if Raven was really up to something sinister. He doubted it but given Raven usually shoved his thoughts under your nose, very loudly, having him sneaking around was out of character. Did Reese know what was going on? No…but Van was guessing that if Reese knew anything important she would've stolen Raven away when they met up that morning which wasn't to say they didn't have other ways of conversing Van didn't know about…

* * *

"See," Van whispered teasingly down into Raven's sleeping, twitching, face early the next morning, "this is who I know you're Imperial: you can never sleep in your _own _territory."

Raven mumbled dragging the pillow over his head and as Van discarded the blankets off himself he threw them over Raven. By the time he was out of the shower and wrestling with the toothpaste the Imperial was up. Where Van looked like road kill in the morning Raven looked like he hadn't even lain down to nap. Van used it as evidence to accuse Raven of a lack of soul because no natural human being looked unruffled after eight hours passed out in a blanket cocoon.

"Herman sent us new orders," Raven called kicking open the bathroom door, screen in hand as he leant into the frame. Privacy was apparently not a two way street as far as he was concerned so Van sighed and pressed his navel against the sink to guard his towel from falling while he brushed. "He wants us to go meet up with Rosso and Viola about prep for the Guylos Grand Prix."

"That time of year again already?" Van mused spitting with bumpkin aim down the sink. He'd seen enough old men shoot tobacco to really know how to pull back that bitch and make a show of it. Raven cringed. "Shit, this time last year you were trying to give me lobotomies!"

"How time flies when you're having fun," he snorted before adding curtly, "I'm not going."

"Ya gotta go. Orders." Van mumbled through the brush.

"It's just an excuse to parade us in front of the cameras and calm the _Vox Populi_." His contempt at the idea was so palpable Van glanced covertly to check Raven still wasn't a small Persian cat because sometimes he acted like it.

"Easy job," he countered, "we get to see some of the guys, we don't have to pay admission, all we've got to do is make the people happy, sit back, and eat Cheetos."

Raven stuck his tongue out in a gaging motion.

"You go then. Take Thomas."

"Yeah, and leave you and Irvine to work a job? I don't think so. The '_shoot first and ask questions later'_approach only works if you leave survivors."

"I'm not in the mood to socialize." Raven snapped.

"Are you ever?" Van blinked in faux amazement holding the plastic in his mouth with taunt lips. "I ought to call the press! This is a revelation!"

Raven's hands came up, groaning, as he glided from view in exhausted submission.

"I could win the Noble Peace Price for this!" Van hollered after him, leaning into his heels to keep Raven in his vision for as long as possible, loud enough to wake the neighbours but, really, why shouldn't they know too?

Raven didn't respond but then he didn't need to. Van spat, rinsed, lay his towel over the edge of the bath with the door still flung wide open and shimmed his sweat infused jeans up his hips. There was something very easy about the pace of their missions currently, excitement abounded sure, but it was stop-start rather than that heady building pace he usually associated with the intensity of his long campaigns against Hiltz and Prozen. He sometimes missed the euphoria that came with living through total disaster and getting to shake it off like a dog out of the rain but he supposed it was just asking for trouble to want to see more adventure after all he'd just survived by the skin of his teeth.

He had the belt through the loop, hair up, beads of moisture still clinging to his navel-

_Thump_

Van lurched. It was a heavy, full bodied sound, and everything after was much too quiet.

"Raven?" He called testing, spine unfurling to push him straight up, shooting hard glances out the open door. In that second he called out he saw dropped kettles or boots or other morning paraphernalia in his mind's eye.

Nothing

"Raven?" He called again, louder, already drifting out of the bathroom with his feet picking up pace every time they hit the ground in procession. "Raven?"

Van was nearly sliding off the wood work when from the bedroom he came into the lounge. He scanned up, then down, not consciously but in a natural progression as he moved.

"Shit Rae!" Van skid onto his knees where the ugly tartan rug hit the wood, his mind buzzed but his hands fumbled steadily like they should've after years of combat training.

When Van's heart pounded that fast everything seemed to come to him in fractures. Raven out cold on the floor, unresponsive, not bleeding but burning hot. Then Van in the hallway, screaming orders, the sirens of the ambulance, Zeke and Shadow roused and tense on the hood of the Gustav…

* * *

AN: Takes places after CC/GF in the canon continuity. No connection to anything else on this account, entirely AU and about to get cruel. Hope you enjoyed guys, love hearing from you and I'll see you in seven days.


	2. An Apple a Day

Update as promised. Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 2: _An Apple a Day_

"Does he have any medical history of mental illness, allergies or any other existing conditions?"

"Uh…" Van felt dangerously underqualified. He wanted Reese but they had him holed up in quarantine without his shit and he had only half an idea how the building was shaped after running through it after a gurney. "I don't know. He's adopted."

"Do you know if his vaccinations are current?"

"I'd say so," Raven was paranoid, hated doctors but paranoid and dire to avoid them Van couldn't see why he wouldn't be. Van had little experience with hospitals or injuries, he was lucky like that, but it made him worry some half assed answer on his part would get the Imperial loaded up with something toxic.

"How long has he had a fever?"

"I don't know. I didn't notice it till he passed out, is he up yet?"

"He didn't complain of any discomfort?" Apparently Raven wasn't up yet and this dickwad had no idea what was going down.

"No," when would Raven complain? Raven hated asking for assistance in general. You threw the possibility of looking weak in as a consideration and Van could guarantee the Imperial wouldn't speak up if you pulled his liver out.

"There wasn't any blood?"

"He twitched a little." That kind of made Van feel sick. He hadn't even had breakfast.

"Do you know if he might have epilepsy?"

"Don't think so." Charged particle canon was way too bright if he did but Van wasn't sure of anything at this second. Was the sky blue? Call back later.

"Does he have any next-of-kin we can contact?"

"Um…" no one by blood definitely, "I guess that'd be me or his…" this guy didn't look like the sort who'd grasp the mechanics of how family existed and functioned round the Guardian Force. What to call Reese that would elaborate appropriately? Girlfriend? Ex? Cousin? Adopted sister? Yeah he'd go with that: "adopted sister?"

"Do you think she could tell us anything else?"

"Doubt it." Raven always gave him the impression he and Reece had virtually nothing to do with each other as children. Hiltz nor Reese had apparently come into the picture of Raven's life till well after the coronation went astray (though they all had their suspicions Hiltz and Prozen had been working back stage together much longer).

"Alright, well if you'll just take a seat here for a bit longer, Mister?"

"Oh! Um…" Van scratched his neck lightly. Prozen and Flyheight were loaded words. "Mule, Jordan."

Was that Moonbay's extended family or Rob's that he'd stolen that from? Didn't matter, least this Doc knew they were military but was hick enough not to have any idea of his rights to information from them. So with a little scepticism he let it pass without calling up Van on his inconsistency.

"And your friend?"

"Ray Mule," he lied, but he didn't want Raven any more confused than he had to be when they got him up. Gods did his name sound this stupid to strangers? It was so foreign.

"Well we'll keep you updated."

So what he expected was a good four hours of squat for his foot tapping at this rate. Doctors needed to get better at lying if this guy was standard practice.

* * *

Van's knee bounced. Van was sure at this rate he was going to pull something in his calf but Zeke and Shadow were in plain sight down in the parking lot and the hotel staff said they'd hold their shit (though Van expected to be charged a pretty penny for the human kindness exhibited). Would Reese blame him for this or Raven? Could swing either way really but that thought was only half through his head when he propped his chin on his palm and kept going: was it Gangy Karl Fever? They'd passed through that region. Sure, usually only kids got it or got it bad, but who knew maybe in the big city they'd never much worried about those kinds of shots during Raven's childhood? Nah, unlikely, Prozen would've at least packed him up with everything under the sun before sending Raven off to terrorise the Republic at a vulnerable fourteen.

Infected? Those were the words Raven had used last night. Was that it then? Had his informant caught something, maybe something Zoidian, and passed it onto Raven? Maybe even onto Van now? Or had they caught something in the ruins? It was definitely possible, would explain why the doctors were taking so long, but then the fact this was a small hospital might also explain why the doctors were taking their sweet _effing_ time too.

Van needed to either talk to Raven or, failing that, scour through Raven's messages. He doubted the Imperial was stupid enough to leave anything there he didn't want Van to see but you never knew till you tried and at the moment, Raven's black out considered, Van didn't think he'd feel bad about invading the other's privacy. Especially not when he had reasonable evidence and concern for an investigation as Thomas used to justify.

When the keypad outside Van's little cell was mashed, punched most likely, then rattled he didn't think it was a doctor but when the hydraulic door slid open and Raven thrust his chest in, hands grasping either side of the doorway, he was a little surprised.

"Come on," Raven hissed, "we're getting out of here."

"What they say?" Van demanded stoutly but he was a little hoarse.

"Nothing," the Imperial shrugged flippantly, "they want to keep me for obs. They've got no idea. Let's go."

"I'm guessing they didn't discharge you then," Van snorted but he was already up on his feet, "we should at least stay till they give the all clear."

"Oh fuck em," Raven scoffed padding off down the empty hallway rather hurriedly, half in his suit half in the hospital gown. All suggesting to Van they likely had a few minutes before security noticed Raven missing. "You gave them a fake name right?"

"Yeah, didn't want us getting shitty service cause you're a Prozen," he joked.

"Good," the other appraised, discarding the gown on the laminate flooring as he slipped up the arms of his suit in his stride.

He appreciated Raven's dislike of hospitals so Van kept his mouth shut at least till they cross the car park and hit the streets, Organoids in tow, because getting into a throw down with Raven in a hallway was not productive.

"You scared me," Van admitted brazenly to Raven's grunt as they hurried past civilians, "that wasn't normal. We've got to get you checked out back at base."

"I'm fine." He insisted. "It was probably heat stroke, or exhaustion, or dehydration or something else minor and stupid I don't need doctors breathing down my neck about. It's not like I have brain damage."

"You don't just pass out," he reeled in disbelief that was almost nasty because he found it hard to believe Raven would try to sell either of them that trash. "If I thought you didn't have enough endurance to last a night in a hotel we wouldn't go on the missions we do. Besides you were burning up, you were dead to the world, if I thought it was normal I wouldn't have called anyone. I can handle exhaustion or dehydration or heat stroke but that wasn't it."

"Well whatever it was I'm fine now."

"What about your temp?"

"_I'm fine_." Raven hissed as they rounded the outside of the local park retracing the general direction back to the hotel and Van surprised himself when he caught the Imperial's arm in his hand and tugged them to a halt.

Raven squirmed, snake like, to wrench his upper arm free and Van had to squeeze it harder than he would've liked to hold him still. Raven tugged hard to break free a second time and Van took the opportunity to shove himself closer and grasp at the other's forehead. Raven looked venomous when Van let go and stepped back with his hands up in surrender a second later. Van could see him considering whether or not to spit in his face.

"Satisfied?" He sneered.

"Yeah," Van nodded curtly.

"Then let's go."

You don't ever lay your hand on a woman, Van honestly believed that (unless she was armed and she fired), but guys were fair game given the situation. Nevertheless the frosty reception he was likely to receive for the rest of the day was his problem but he wrote it off as worth it. He didn't like this though, this was looking dangerous, so it was with only slight hesitation he stirred up the trouble again when they reached the hotel.

"What if we caught something in the ruins?" He supposed. "What if you're really sick and contagious? People will be at risk. Least let Dr D or Reese or someone have a look. We're going back to base anyway."

Raven's feet pounded up the flight of stairs to their abandoned hotel room, hands off the rail, fists curled lightly refusing to answer. Van knew he was pushing dangerously, Raven was coiled up to strike, but fuck it he had a responsibility to more than just Raven's health.

"Rav-Omph!" His hands caught the bag as it slammed into his stomach and he would've groaned, as Raven rummaged across the contaminated room, but he felt his frustration rising. "Raven!-"

Raven slung his things over his shoulder and forced his way out passed him to pound back down the stairs to the Gustav where the Organoids were grumbling awkwardly. Van hefted his bag and took chase. If it had been a little while ago, when they first started working together, Van assumed Raven would've taken off for Van's crossing of boundaries. It was an illogical kind of overreaction to being manhandled but Raven flew off the handle like a retard frequently. Now however, after six months, there was enough tenuous trust between them for Raven to cross his arms behind the wheel of the Gustav and wait for Van to drag his sorry ass in after him.

Seriously, no wonder people thought they were dating. They fought like a young white trash couple on day time TV. Van was starting to remember how hard it was to ever settle a minor insult or injury with Raven in the world of battle politics. Being on the same side and in good favour had lulled Van a little into thinking Raven could be more reasonable when it struck him outside the cockpit. Well lightning didn't strike today because when they shut the canopy it was obvious Raven had no interest in being reasonable or personable.

Van wouldn't apologize, not for caring about others certainly, and he'd tattle to Reese or Dr D or the med crew and get them to check Raven when they returned to base but he suspected the imperial was sane enough to consent to that if nothing else. After that he'd probably have to take the next mission with Thomas till all this blew over. Till Raven could look at him without radiating disdain again and Van at him without wanting to punch him they weren't likely to make good decisions.

* * *

Herman was a bit begrudging about letting them switch up the roster for the Grand Prix prep but the general air of contempt Raven flew around was electric enough for Rob to relent lightly. They'd be stuck together when the real thing rolled round but till then it was in everyone's best interest they cooled down rather than rampaged. Van would say that he was above rampaging but when Raven ditched him in the hangar he had the greatest urge just to toss something at his fleeing head and punch out the console of the Gustav.

_Reckless nasty little_…

"What happened?" Fiona was mildly sympathetic when she took a prim seat beside him in the cafeteria. "I thought everything was going well."

"Doesn't like it when you mention his rabies," Van joked dryly, "he okay?"

"Reese hasn't found any pathogens in the ruins yet and Dr D didn't find anything on Raven."

"Least there's that then," he justified, "we found anything in that joint yet?"

"Lots," Fiona pepped, "sorting through it will take a while. It's exciting stuff."

"Glad to help."

"Anyway you two will straighten it out." Fiona assured around him, her hand rolling up and down his slouched back, his face resting in his forearms on the table.

"Reese get like this?"

"Sometimes," Fiona sighed uncertainly.

"Darn," Van heaved, "hey, you want to come with me and Thomas to Prep the Grand Prix? You and Rudolf can scheme up another championship."

Fiona laughed at his whim but consented readily. Van could imagine she'd stir some trouble with Rudolf, those two could be as thick as thieves, but what could it hurt? Right now, with the sour taste in his mouth, he just wanted to be with his old friends shrugging this off lightly. Some sunshine, his cue to be the funny guy, easy conversation and trails of behaviour he could follow the patterns of, that he was familiar with, sounded to be just what the doctor ordered for burying today's mess.

* * *

Van was more himself, light, making stupidly flippant jokes, big expressive gestures in that calm but almost unconsciously skilled way by the time the Whale King docked at base.

The mission had gone as well as expected. Rudolf had grown at least three inches and Van could barely throw him up off his feet anymore much to the relief of Hommeleft's haggard blood pressure. They'd snuck each other little whispers about the tits on Rudolf's secretary, laughing, and the Prince got it now with his own testosterone aided wandering-eye even if he still turned terribly pink after a moment. He was growing up which meant to Van that he was almost all grown himself.

Thomas was definitely softened to him, and his whooping pats on the back, though Van was fairly sure his suggestion that Thomas and Fiona grab lunch without him once or twice was part of the reason for that. Whatever. It perked Thomas right up to Van, give him such slack, and Van wasn't exactly afraid that Thomas was going to do something untoward. Lord, Van didn't even know if Thomas had any comprehension that men _could _be untoward to women. He was way too ruler strict, upstanding, for an attitude like that. The way Thomas spoke about his mother you would've thought all women were glass angles. Van liked it, was nice when folks appreciated their own folks.

Rosso took them drinking one night, in the tropical heat of the Island, and sent Van chasing after tail like a big brother with a leash into the late hours. Viola dragged them back, able to down just as many shots without losing her land legs from years of mercenary and bandit work, when dawn was sneaking up on them and they went straight to work making it a forty-eight hour shift. None of them had worked that hard to stay awake since the Death Stinger…

Van stretched himself out after a night or two, felt like himself, eased back into his familiar shape. Though after a week he was wearing a little thin of all the company. Oh he was still having fun but he was glad to head back. He kind of missed the easy silence of being round Raven. Raven and Fiona got that Van shut his trap only when everything was fine not the other way around. They didn't fret over him going quiet or simmering down to something less vivacious over the night. Rudolf got it, to a point, Van suspected he had much the same problem sometimes but either way Van was happy to head back with a job well done tucked under the belt.

He had that uneasy trepidation of a blind leap when they landed and separated for their various shuttles. It was still odd to go his separate ways from his little clan even for short periods without a set date to meet up again. Fiona peppered both he and Thomas with kisses, girlish hugs, and flittered off while Thomas looked, or at least played, as proud and fearless as ever hauling up into the elevator after Irvine who had come to meet him. Irvine's black eye didn't bode well for Van. Looked like his mission with Raven had proved interesting given how the Merc grunted sourly.

On his lonesome Van shoved his hands into his pockets, beckoned Zeke, and took his time. The hangar was empty, musty from a day's work, all hung with the scent of oil and gel Van knew way too well when he finally reached it. Place was dark but their Gustav was there, the Breaker loaded waiting for the Liger, and Van almost wandered off to the barracks. Raven must've left it he assumed. They'd pack up in the morning but he gave it a once over out of habit. Moonbay used to leave Fiona and he notes when they wandered off. If they came back and she was gone there'd be one on the dash. Generally it consisted of: "_gone to get groceries with Irvine. Don't eat all the canned pudding."_ Which was cool because Fiona preferred the peaches and Van couldn't eat three puddings by himself (though he could make a valiant attempt).

He unlocked the canopy, lifting it up with his hands rather than with the automatics so he could take a peek inside scanning the semi orange-hued darkness.

"Raven?"

Raven rolled onto his back, shuffling up under the blanket strewn over the back seat, and tilted his head back to gaze up almost upside down at Van sat hunched, looking in, just over his head.

"Hey," he breathed, groggy.

"You look like shit." Van declared. It came out harsh but he was softened when he continued playfully; "racoon eyes."

"I feel like shit."

Van moved his feet carefully, creeping into the cockpit, one arm holding the canopy over his head one gripping the back of the front seat so he could slide in between the front and back seat without stepping on Raven. The Imperial lay back, Van had made a snug spot for himself between the front passenger and driver's seat.

"Anything I can help with?" Van regretted always being the hero sometimes.

"No," Raven mused lazily eyes still visibly bright in the darkness, "just a migraine or two the last few days."

"We'll head off in the morning then. You want me to bugger off so you can sleep?"

"I don't mind," he shrugged permissively, "whatever you want."

Van knew well enough when to take a veiled apology for what it was and not press for more even when he could jump in for the kill. Restraint, learning that, had been a big part of Kruger's attempts to help him grow up and check his mouth. So Van just smiled, let it go, and soaked up the facts: the anger had evaporated, they were past the big chunk of the storm, now they both just wanted to go back to playing nice. This wasn't something to start another massive cat fight over.

"Is it cool if I crash here then?" Just the atmosphere inside the cockpit, warm and inviting, was enough to make Van want to lull off. He'd slept in worse scrapes.

"Sure," Raven conceded with that politeness that was almost friendly, almost inviting, and Van leant back the passenger seat as far as he could without crushing Raven's legs, with the all clear, and wrapped up his jacket to doze.

Raven fumbled in the back, uppish but still half down, messing with the centre seat that opened up into the back storage of the Gustav and nudged Van's shoulder after a moment to pass him a second blanket.

"Thanks." Van whispered.

* * *

Van groaned, grasping his seat, stirred from a stupor to consciousness violently when the Gustav started vibrating, rattling, sensors beeping and whirring and clicking unnaturally to life. The seat shook, the canopy camera feed flickered in and out of life, the sensors garbled nonsense and in the back seat, on his stomach, Raven rose onto his elbows looking pallid. They shared a look of barely conscious confusion before Van heaved himself up to fiddle with the rampant machinery.

When the controls didn't respond it was a fight for Van to start up the ignition and run through what little he could think of that might help. Eventually he found the pulse guard command, with its override authority, and let it flare. Abruptly the Gustav fell back into order, like a bad child, and Van was left leaning awkwardly across the driver's seat blinking the sleep out of his eyes.

"A Rare Hertz?" He mumbled bemusedly over his shoulder to a still rather sickly, owl eyed, Raven. "In here?"

"One of Reese's bugs?" Raven groaned, falling back onto his stomach, his arm hanging off the seat. "Must've gone astray she leaves them everywhere."

"Mother fuckers," Van sighed making himself up back on the reclining passenger seat without another thought.

* * *

It wasn't often these days they got to deal with real punks. The grunts got tasked with that most often but, hey, variety is the spice of life and Van did love a chance to make an arrest with his own two hands. He got a whole punk Christmas that march when they ferreted a band of outlaws out of one of Hiltz' old weapons caches. Took them a week or two but it was good fun. Raven made playing the good cop fabulous, the snark he could come out with at the drop of a hat was fantastic, they bantered so much while slapping these kids a new one they barely broke a sweat.

They even gave the punks a little wave when they got loaded up for the ride to their new holding cell. Raven even consented to join in with that tight smug grin on his face because if there was anything they both enjoyed it was moron poaching. Even with a bunker full of bombs and evil genius grade equipment their latest trouble makers couldn't rig a good defence so as far as Van was concerned they all got idiot gold stars (he had six he was working off from his earlier years so it was nice to see someone else get them).

Raven eased back when the transport cleared out of view, leaning his weight into the Breaker with a heavy inhalation and a sudden sickly sheen to his face.

"You right?"

"Migraine," Raven murmured disgruntled, hand working over his forehead. "Just came at me in a rush. Like hot nausea."

"_Again?_" Van mused. "You're still getting them? That's got to be the third one this week."

"Yeah," he sighed quietly, hardly bothering to argue but turned away. Raven didn't like complaining, he didn't if he could get away with it without Van's attention, but he was looking exceptionally haggard lately. Still what pride he did have made him turn away his face stubbornly. It must hurt.

"Should see someone about that."

"I'll be right," he insisted, "just humidity in this damn hell hole."

"Don't giv-" Van's cell cut him off sharply and Raven gave him a softly smug little gesture of prompting which they both knew he couldn't very well ignore. It wasn't like it was going to be Van's sister after all. He sighed, he pointed at Raven in promise to pick up the issue momentarily, and pressed the little monster to his ear with his usual lilt of the syllables. "Hello? Oh hey Rob!"

Raven smirked and Van raised his index finger, waggling it warningly, while taking in Herman in one ear and keeping one eye on his troublesome cohort. Raven wasn't convinced however given the belly rub he rather dutifully conceded to doll out to a euphoric Zeke while Van prattled off his "_uh-huh"_s and "_oh yeah?"_s.

"We'll be there with bells on," Van swore, "don't let her start without us."

"Oh gods, what now?"

"Reese wants to brief everyone. She and Dr D finally finished decoding some of those scripts." Van elaborated. "They've got new Death Surer Intel to throw around."

"_Fuck_." Raven snapped sourly.

"Don't sweat it, Reese probably wants to show off her big new discovery," he shrugged.

"Reese doesn't like public speaking; she wouldn't unless she felt she had to. If she's going to the trouble of making it understandable to anyone without a PhD it's not good news."

"You're over tired," Van put forth blandly, "you need to see a doctor."

* * *

"It's not good."

Van choked a little. Trust Reese to open up a meeting by being so brazenly pessimistic and trust Raven to slam his elbow into Van's side pointedly in victorious self-assurance.

"You always say that," Irvine dismissed, "the air con goes down and you want us to fill out suicide notes."

"Three apocalypses will do that do you." She was a smarmy bitch but, hey, the mood of the room appreciated it given how Moonbay saluted. "Point is this: the Death Surer isn't dead."

"Course it is. We shot a Blade Liger through its torso." The Merc snorted with a hearty gesture towards Van who took the opportunity to shake his fists in over his head like a champion boxer.

"Convincing as that was apparently it didn't do the trick." Reese sneered unhappily. "The Death Surer's Zoid core is still active and it's sucking up power from EVE at an increasing rate if the heat signature is anything to go by."

"Just leave it. Who's going to dig it up out of the Valley of the Rarehertz anyway?" Irvine grinned. "Least, who's going to dig it up without somebody noticing?"

"It's the biggest ticking time bomb on the planet," Reese clarified, "oh and it's right next to EVE. So, we'll just leave it and start pursuing alternative modes of non-Zoid transport shall we? Have a driver's licence Irvine?"

"So we go, we plant, we disable what's left of it." Moonbay intervened.

"Second Problem," Fiona voiced solemnly from across the table, "it's highly unstable and deliriously radioactive down there."

"Well do we have any reasonable suggestions?" Thomas supposed.

"Working on it," Dr D chirped, "can make a black hole I certainly won't be stopped by a little_ massive radiation_." The handy use of sarcastic air quotes came into play here.

"Third Problem," Reese decided everything was turning too positive and it was time to deeply dampen the situation, "those lovely ruins Van and Raven turned upside down."

"What about them?" Van reclined. He was tempted to throw his boots on the table top amongst all Reese's sprawling documents but Karl shot him that covert look about propriety and he was forced to settled for just slouching like a cowboy. "It was a production plant wasn't it?"

"For the Death Surer and all its accessories," Reese confirmed counting off her fingers, "the body, the Double Stingers that eventually took it down, and it's pilot."

"Pilot?" Oh there was a trigger word. "I thought it didn't have a cockpit in the final design."

"Apparently it does somewhere and a pilot for it. Genetically engineered and reared for the task. Just like Fiona for EVE." She expanded sharply gaze falling very hot on the petite blonde in question who appeared, for the first time in a long time, rather uneasy at the prospect. "The Fiona who should have remembered said monstrosity existed."

"So should you!" Moonbay hollered.

"I was a little girl, no one told me anything, Elisi Lynette was an important young woman. Goddess to those denizens almost."

"So it had a pilot, big yip, how's that our problem?" Irvine grumbled.

"Because the details of this thing's construction are nasty enough," Reese chortled, "without the fact we have confirmation he made it into stasis after the destruction of the Zoidians and is active now."

"_How?"_ Van reeled leaning forward.

"It's complicated," Reese sighed fingers skirting her temple, "this was a precise little bit of organic machinery they built, a nasty one, this kid would've had abilities like Fiona or I but not the fuzzy happy _here-let-me-heal-your-Zoid_ sort."

"Your mind raping abilities definitely don't count as warm and fuzzy either." Van felt it poignant to point out for the record.

"Yes…" Reese consented begrudgingly "but they were intended for medical use."

"No wonder the Zoidians died out…" Irvine had a good under the breath mumble but Reese's aim with the clipboard was stupendous. "_Ow!_ Bitch!"

"Wait, wait," Thomas spread his hands out cautiously, "how do we know that he's on Zi? Most of the Zoidians died in cyro-stasis or woke up a long time ago."

"Prozen and Hiltz," Reese began much to the exhausted groans of everyone present under the age of twenty five. Karl and Rob were, of course, the only ones who managed to keep their mouths shut.

"The records we found in the ruins detailing the Death Surer's construction make it very clear that the interface they used to have this child pilot it created some of the horrid side effects we have to deal with."

"Prozen and Hiltz were very obviously possessed by the Death Surer's malevolent spirit but the records we found make it very clear that while the Death Surer's body creates a Rare Hertz pulse which manipulates Zoids-" Fiona intervened.

"Wild sleepers, rouge wrecks, etc…" Reese gesticulated.

"-the only pulse capable of manipulating humans and Zoidians comes from the pilot."

"So if Prozen and Hiltz were possessed then they had to have had some contact with the Zoidian?" Thomas finalised to the benefit of Van and Irvine who were scrubbing their necks and shrugging their shoulders at each other.

"Seems that way," Reese sighed, "thing is it could've been any of Hiltz and Prozen's contacts or informants or soldiers. Anyone with some direct contact with them."

"Why wouldn't the Death Surer's pilot want to be the one piloting when things went down?" Irvine supposed. "It doesn't make sense."

"We don't know."

"What if it _was _Hiltz?" Moonbay interjected. "I mean he was bonkers, right? Claimed to know all about the Death Surer's big plan, he even said he was the only sort of person who could control it without being possessed."

"Unfortunately we don't have any evidence confirming that," Herman concluded grimly with Dr D's confirming gesture. "We'll just have to treat it as if this thing is still out there somewhere. Getting rid of the Death Surer is going to have to be our main priority in the meantime until we get some leads. I'm going to have to leave that in your capable hands Dr D."

The old man was evidently pleased by the prospect.

"General Herman," Karl spoke up and in that terribly Schubaltz way made everyone shut up and listen to him, "perhaps we should have Fiona and Reese organise teams to start trailing leads on the pilot?"

"Good call," Rob was still gruff, not as gruff as Kruger mind you but he lacked an element of formality that the imperial army perpetuated. "Take Van, Thomas, Irvine and Raven ladies."

"Oh thanks," Reese sighed, though Fiona was cheery enough.

"What about me?" Moonbay, as always, did not like the sound of being left behind.

"Something tells me we'll need you to help assist Dr D."

"Oh _stellar_."

* * *

1. Mule is Herman's extended family in the manga through his mother's "sister" _(whole other story!_) who married into the Lulu Mule's family (who rule over the Oluga protected city state of the same name)

2. I'm guessing at the spelling of Gangy Karl fever (if it's based off a real illness I'd love to know) the child prone illness that killed Irvine's sister Mary/Rebecca (depending on the manga or the anime name)

3. Dr D isn't a people doctor, let's not forget, but I'm assuming he knows his way around all things Zoidian biological and technological or at the very least when I say "Dr D checked Raven over" its a general term for him and his crew of hot assistants.

So here's where we get our two/three problems for the fic: your romance, your mystery (two counting Raven's friend and his illness) and your big bad.

Hope you had fun guys, see you next week.


	3. Hush a Bye Baby

I'm back! On schedule and everything! Must be an apocalypse in the works *cracks neck* ouch…

* * *

Chapter 3: _Hush a Bye Baby _

"This is just what I get for thinking things are too quiet," Van chortled miserably tossing back his coffee as they pressed into the gangway over the drop, "hey, Fiona, do you remember them? That pilot?"

"Not really," she sighed beside him nursing her own cup, it was as peaceful as you could hope for on base with the three of them up so high away from the mechanics overlooking the Blade Liger. "I wasn't allowed out of the Temple or away from my carers. I think they tried to keep my life as clean and pleasant as possible, _purity striven for_ or something I don't remember the exact phrase, but I know was tiny when the fighting and rebellions started. I was a little girl when the Death Surer went into development and that Zoidian was born. They didn't tell me much about them but I think it was a boy, in a different temple, built by different engineers, to do a different job. He would've only been very young when the Death Surer went rogue and he destroyed so much of our civilization."

"You never met him?"

"I don't think so."

"Might be a good thing," Van theorised weakly, "doesn't sound like he was friendly. Then again when you talk about your childhood it doesn't exactly sound fun either."

"Everyone was very nice to me," Fiona shrugged, "but they had to be. I was a religious object. I was cloned, generation after generation, and put into priestesses who acted as my surrogate mothers out of divine duty and then passed me on to carers. I wasn't unhappy then but I'm so glad now that I'm free here to be whatever I want. Still, it's horrible that so many people died and that so many more died trying to keep me alive. I feel guilty sometimes…"

"You didn't ask for it," he soothed, "but I'm really glad you're here."

"Can't be as happy as I am," she teased slightly in one of her veiled but sweet attempts to shift the mood away from her heavier thoughts, "that I have all of you and this life."

He couldn't form a reply sufficient enough for the depth of Fiona's sentiment. How did you come back to that? You couldn't but she forgave him for trying with his smile and shuffled a little closer. The drills clicked on below them, Zeke curled on the platform to their right, and the lights flickered with the thick moonlight coming from the high windows rimming the roof of the third hanger.

"How young was he?" Van stressed gently. He didn't kill children, he didn't kill unarmed, he didn't hurt women if he could help it. He couldn't fathom murdering a child.

"Younger than Rudolf then, I think, but he'd be older now if he was there to manipulate Prozen. Probably an adult now and maybe even a woman. My memory from that age is sketchy and everyone was so panicked later I didn't get very clear stories."

"They kept you on Lumiere Island right?"

"Yes."

"Maybe this is out of line," he murmured, "but what was it like for Reese?"

"Well…she hasn't told me much…" Fiona tinged, "we don't talk about it a lot… I think her experience was fairly typical. Her family were poor but respected in their community so when the soldiers came looking for skilled workers to help the war effort and children to put in suspension her village nominated her. The couldn't take everyone, just important people got priority, and then a lucky few as surplus and only then because the government thought we'd need labour and help repopulating… She just remembers all the fear and the panic I think. I don't think she remembers a time when everything was peaceful."

"Better now hopefully," Van cringed, lots of kids on Zi felt that way. Most of them had either lived their whole lives through the Republic-Imperial war or through Hiltz' destruction. If orphanages, social workers, shrinks and government programs weren't packed after the war they certainly were now. "Makes me feel useless and ineffectual sometimes, I mean, sure we stopped the bad guy but we still let all this fallout happen."

"Price of war," Fiona sighed knowingly, "they- Oh!" she craned her body over the rail, "I think Raven's looking for you."

"Better go," he heaved weakly straining a softer smile for her sake though the knowing she exhibited in her eyes told Van he didn't have to worry about offending her, "don't stay up too late."

"Night Van."

"Night Beautiful," he half teased with a friendly wave as he beckoned Zeke up to the nearest elevator.

* * *

Irvine and Thomas always looked a little less pallid around Shadow when Van emerged to join a conversation. In this case Raven had planted himself on the back tray of a standard issue jeep so the three of them could bicker.

"There you are!" Irvine hollered gesturing to drag Van in with a twitching of his fingers. "Give me a hand here the_ girls_ are being unreasonable."

Poor Thomas always looked so offended at the insult.

"I think we all need a drink," their trusty merc declared to Van, "the killjoys don't agree."

"Now?" Van coughed. "It's already late."

"You know how these things go. If I don't get a drink now I won't get time to get another before some giant monster's tearing down every decent bar."

"That is a surprisingly good point," Van conceded appealingly to Thomas and Raven's intensely sceptical faces. "My shout."

"You go then," Raven dismissed slipping off the jeep, "I'm working on the Breaker. Those monkeys have no idea how to handle a quality machine."

"Oi wait up!" He pleaded. "Just for an hour let's all have a drink without working. Irvine's right 'bout one thing; it'd be good for us."

"It is true that in the long, hard, life of a decorated career soldier one never knows which of his comrades will be there tomorrow and which will not." Thomas always managed to come out with something of that sort of highfalutin nonsense. It was mildly charming but to Irvine, crass straight shorting Irvine, Van guessed it must've seemed like a tick.

"What he said," the hero chuckled, as long as they were swaying the crowd you couldn't complain about the nature of the support you got. "Sure you won't reconsider Raven?"

"You owe me a game of pool," Irvine reminded conveniently shoving his hands in his pockets, "I'll thrash you but the actual rematch is part of the formality."

Challenging Raven went one of two ways: it either blew up in your face or went your way. All depended on how and when you used that card to direct the situation. Van was always careful with his steps in that regard. Raven never left a Van challenge uncontested but Van very rarely left those challenges without a bruise. How did Irvine fair?

"You've got me for an hour." Raven surrendered. "Including travel time."

"Let's roll then," Irvine slapped his hands together blandly as if scraping up the troops for some kind of Viking raid.

Every now and again, when it got really late, Irvine joked that he and Van should become con men along the Republican coast where wealthy Imperial tourists were their stupidest and the tropical sun made them their most appealing with their farmers' tans. Van thought about it for his retirement as a rather adventurous concept whenever they talked the secretaries into something or Thomas and Raven into giving them an inch with which to take a mile.

* * *

"She's got _great _tits," Irvine appraised to Thomas' mounting frustration as the merc shoved at him with the butt of his elbow, "total Imperial mouse. Go score. It'll get the stick out of your ass."

"I will do no such thing!" Thomas spat. "You don't even know she's Imperial!"

"Stereotyping's bad." Van enforced with a tilt of his glass, more to stir the pot than make a contribution because at times like this it was much more enjoyable to sit back and watch them squabble over specifics so stir the pot he would.

"Listen ya prude," Irvine whispered, "her clothes are all Imperial cut."

"She flashed the waiter a Republican licence." Thomas countered.

They scared Van really. With a mercenary's eye and a scientist's precision not much got past Irvine and Thomas when you sent them out problem solving together. Oh they didn't agree on anything but they noticed everything. Van preferred his instincts which Thomas found insufferable but Raven liked deferring to.

"Raven?" He muttered behind his glass as in the leather cradle of the booth Raven watched the unfolding argument with the same interest, "I was thinking-"

"Never a good sign," Raven warned, lifting his mug. No coffee, no booze, tonight just chocolate and lashings of sugar for their unspoken designated driver. Van really needed to get him wasted sometime. Raven was bound to be a happy drunk.

"You ever notice anyone suspect hanging round Prozen when you were little? I mean if the Death Surer was about you'd be the person to ask I figured."

Thomas and Irvine weren't paying them the slightest waver of attention.

"_Everyone _Prozen knew was suspicious," he scoffed tiredly, "the odds are not in our favour."

"I was afraid of that." Really though it was inevitable, Van had been fairly aware of the answer he would get for his question before he asked it because his IQ was over twenty. "You think it was Hiltz?"

"Seems like the type."

"You're not giving me much," it didn't bother him tonight, "not in the mood for theories?"

"Not tonight." Raven confessed slipping down the leather to rest his head back against it.

"Migraine?"

"Not right now," he sighed, fetching his phone from his pocket to flip the clamshell open and scroll undecidedly through his screens just out of Van's immediate line of sight.

Van hadn't forgotten Raven's little informant but he was waiting for the right time to bring it up that or, failing that, more evidence to go off before he made a move on it. It hadn't caused them trouble yet, yet being the key word, whoever it was had actually been pretty helpful in helping uncover this new info but Van didn't appreciate secrets especially not when _Death Surer_ was included in the small print. It was pivotally important to be careful here though he appreciated. Raven was still texting at odd hours but he hadn't had a chance to catch any more strange phone calls or to steal the Imperial's phone to inspect and there was no point raising it with the others till he actually had something to weigh down his imagination. He was ninety precent assured Raven hadn't snuck off for a meeting yet.

"Van!" Irvine hissed low grasping at his shoulder across the table. "See the blonde?"

"Do I ever!" Van whistled under his breath to Thomas' distaste. "Think she's real?"

"Want to find out?"

"We have to report back to base in the morning!" Thomas screeched to their joint shushing.

Raven laughed, softly, and turned up his nose shifting in his seat to rest his weight more into Van. The Republican got mild satisfaction from the show of good humour even if there was something pointed about Raven blocking his exit from the booth that might've been unintentional if he didn't sincerely believe Raven always had some idea what he was doing. He brushed it off as a gesture intended to keep Van from leaping up and getting them all in unnecessary trouble.

* * *

"Irvine!" Van only sort of heard himself, jovial and flippant, over the rattling of the steel stairs underneath his boots.

"What?" The elder cawed from atop the Lightning Siax.

"You see Raven this morning?" He retorted thumbs hooked in his belt.

"Ask Thomas," Irvine dismissed, "he was up tinkering with him last night. Last I saw of him. He ditch you again?"

"Apparently!" Van laughed. He was moderately buzzed from the alcohol he'd admit.

The girls weren't up yet, or at least Fiona wasn't, yet even if she was an early riser he was surprised to see Moonbay dolling out the coffee in the nearest break room to Reese and Thomas. Reese looked about as grim as she ever did, Thomas much the same, and Moonbay's morning grimace was only just starting to waver while the desert sun passed the dawn and started to heat the great sheds up a few more degrees.

"Yo Thomas," he threw himself across the entryway, "you got any idea where Raven is?"

"Oh!" The slighter man shifted on his hackles like a breeze had just whizzed along his spine and Reese's hair stood on end like a cat the way she clasped her cup. "Uh!"

"Med bay," Moonbay answered while the pair of them were tongue tied, "try there."

"Med bay?"

"He blacked out on Schubaltz here last night," she replied, "had to take him over to medical admissions. You were asleep and I guess Herman didn't think you'd be up yet."

"Blacked out?" Van reeled stomach lurching.

"Dropped like a stone!" Thomas clarified unhelpfully. "One minute he was making dreadful implications about my circuitry next thing I knew he was unconscious. It's a miracle he didn't fall off the Geno Breaker!"

"He's not injured is he?" Reese still seemed far too stiff for Van's comfort.

"Doctor's wouldn't tell me," Thomas faltered tone rising, "but you will be happy to know I kept my cool and handled the situation in a very professional manner if I do say so myself!"

"Stellar," Van whooshed in an exhale, "thanks guys! Back later!"

* * *

The grunts of HQ had become accustomed to Van jogging down the hallways, they were as nonchalant about the affair as they could be so there was often a little pointing and whispering but his pace didn't send hackles of unease through the corridors like it used to when Hiltz was still breathing. Unfortunately for him the nurses on duty were just as flustered and confused as he was regarding Raven's whereabouts.

"I'll let you know when I find him," he swore, to the peppery woman who gave all the burly guys on base their shots and told no one when they cringed like little girls (bless her cotton socks).

* * *

Van almost tackled the insufferable bastard for the images that flashed through his head of Raven tumbling down unconscious for the second time in so many weeks. He almost shot him when the discovered him, finally, in the officer's gym beating the shit out of one of the heavy chained navy punching bags. The equipment in here was run ragged, Van didn't help that problem (liked a good run sue him), and the blue mats looked like they'd seen better days but then so did Raven when Van got close enough.

"Hey! Pyscho!" He slapped at the back of Raven's shoulder as he turned up in another kick, body contorting with practice, "you scared the shit out of me! Where the hell you been?"

"Here," Raven grunted, he'd been here for a while evidently if the scent of sweat, the sheen on his face and the pant of his lips was anything to gauge off of. After all it took a good thirty minutes to get any of them worked up and Van knew from a particularly bad dare that Raven's childhood had prepared him for a good four to six hours of physical endurance on this kind of equipment.

"Since when?"

"I don't know, five or six," Raven shrugged pivoting round him to sweep up the sorrid little towel he'd left over a pile of mats and bounce onto the treadmill.

"You passed out again." Van rarely ever felt like he was scolding but his sister had given him plenty of practice and he was beginning to appreciate how she hated his inability to meet her eye when he was focused.

Raven's feet pounded on the tread and it took a glance or two for him to realize Van expected some kind of response which he didn't seem to feel was necessary.

"So?" He panted.

"So I was worried! I wake up this morning and Thomas is say-"

"Thomas has a big mouth," Raven staggered out, "he should've kept it shut. It's nothing."

"Then what'd the Doctor's say this time?" He demanded.

"Bay three needs better air con."

Was that a joke? A bad one sure but an attempt at all was startling under the circumstances.

"I…you…" Van's face and hand connected naturally in exasperation. His lungs emptied heavily throwing his hands up. "You know what, whatever, I'm going back to pack up the Liger. We gotta go in a couple of hours."

"I'll be there in two." Raven called breathlessly eyes still locked on the forward almost stupidly unaware. Guy had selective fucking hearing Van didn't know how Prozen ever got him to do anything.

* * *

Van skin itched not with anything physical but that niggling discomfort that was occasionally brought on by the toxic combination of frustration, concern and confusion. Shadow was hugging up to the Breaker dejectedly to his right, Zeke clinging nervously to the Liger to his right, while Van stuffed another bag down the back of the Gustav. He didn't trust himself to say goodbye to any of the guys right now without raising his voice with a couple of words he'd regret later.

"You've got to stop worrying about me so much."

He'd hand it to him Raven could sneak when the damnable prat felt the urge. He couldn't hide his start after the fact but he'd be burnt alive before he gave Raven the satisfaction of taking in the stupid look plastered across his features. It was a wonder Van didn't hate him more frequently these days.

"It's not your problem." Raven elaborated and Van's wishful thinking, the inner adolescent male who wanted to be validated in every man, felt like the slender monster was trying to appeal to him.

Van grunted.

"Look at me." He ordered sharply, voice rattling off the charts to an uncomfortably high pitch that was all at once furious and panicked, fingers wrenching at Van's elbow to drag him around to face him.

Raven's nails stung his elbow and Van was at a loss for when the maverick got so close behind him in the span of their lopsided argument. He was swept away by that cracking of the tone, the sharpness in Raven's eyes, the way he heaved Van to him demanding attention Van had never known him to seek out. He was going to give the other his two cents but something about Raven crinkled, withered, in his propped up body and appeared very broken and weak all of a sudden crushing Van's foul intentions.

"_I'm fine_." Raven stressed up and him tightly. Taking time to emphasise the syllables into Van's bemused features staring blankly back at him.

Van didn't know why, Raven's fingers felt like they could snap his forearm if they wanted too, but he felt as if something was very broken. As healthy, if flushed, Raven looked Van had that odd implication that he was mortally wounded somewhere which the Imperial appeared to think likewise.

"You're fine." Van fumbled. Was he consenting to Raven's opinion or convincing the man of the truth of the statement? Did Raven believe it or did Van or did either of them?

Raven forced his way forward, though Van hadn't thought he could invade his personal space any further, till Raven's arms were locked round his torso and his face was buried beyond recognition in Van's clavicle. In the entire history of their relationship Van had never known Raven to ever be held by anyone, not Reese, not Prozen, least of all him and Van couldn't ever recall an occasion before or after the side-switching when Raven had made the tiniest request to be comforted. Guys like Irvine and Raven made livings being tough and without need. So it was rattling, beyond disturbing, for Raven to be shaking against him like this. Shaking? Yes, he was, Van noted and shook off what little anger was left in him to wrap Raven up in his arms and squeeze him close till his heart stopped pounding next to Van's like a hummingbird.

"What is it?" He muttered uselessly. Furious, enraged, even a murderous Raven Van could handle but terrified Raven he could not.

Raven shook his head stubbornly, buried, fingers curled in his shirt and Van was a little too breathless to push it. Frankly he stunned into a dumb stupor the likes of which he'd never encountered with his hand cupping the back of Raven's head and his arm round his middle. As the seconds ticked by Van had the awareness that any number of hapless staff members could happen upon them and misconstrue what was going on which unnerved him. Fuck Raven's body was warm along the length of his and his concern mingled with guilt and bemusement and the tiniest note of arousal that frightened him…

Raven fell back from him slowly, untangling, silent as the grave and pale as a sheet. He met Van's eyes only after a long hard moment of staring into space and smiled weakly in a way Van did his best to return as consolingly as possible.

"What'd the docs say?"

"Nothing," Raven sighed, "they don't know."

"You positive you want to go out?"

"More than anything" he groaned, "I'd rather not linger in some hospital bed feeling like my body's falling apart around me."

"I get it." Though Van couldn't imagine it and didn't want to have to.

"Don't tell Reese?"

"I won't."

* * *

"So what's the plan exactly?" Raven began cautiously. "Who's left to interrogate? Most of the Prozen loyalists and Hiltz' flunkies are dead."

"You're door knocking," Reese sighed across the comm., "that list I gave you has anyone we known of who's still living with some connection to Prozen while he was at Guylos. It's not much but we need to at least narrow down persons of interest and, specifically, anyone who might've had some opportunity to meet Hiltz."

Van and Raven were both groaning by now, like a pair of waning mules at market, which garnered no sympathy from the Zoidian regardless.

"Irvine and Thomas got the same job. They're chasing suppliers in the Republic. At least you get to cross the border." She tsked. "Now shut your traps and move your asses."

"I'm a hero," Van whined dramatically hands spreading before him like some foretold messiah, "my assignments should be _way_more glamorous than this."

"Listen to all the fucks I give." Reese grinned dripping venomous sarcasm.

"I swear sometimes I wish I was still on the other side," Raven mumbled as the connection died abruptly at Reese's dismissive command, "my orders used to subsist of a location and something to eradicate from the face of the earth."

"Reese needs a boyfriend," Van sighed, "that or a good long lay."

"Sounds more like you could go for one."

"_Amen_." Van strained. "Longest relationship I've had in the last two years has been with my right hand."

"Relax Flyheight, I doubt it'll fall off from lack of use," the maverick snorted. "Let's get this shit over with. I've got paint to watch dry back at HQ."

* * *

"We should sleep," Van declared eventually, yawning pointedly to illustrate his point. "We're almost to the border. Get up early and hit it tomorrow."

"You sleep," Raven insisted, "I'll drive."

"The border's not going anywhere." He reminded casually but he was too calm to bring the sass into it at this hour. Frankly Van didn't have ants in his pants about this latest assignment. He guaranteed it'd turn up nothing but dead ends unless the gods were smiling (but that was as likely as lightning striking twice).

"I know," Raven smoothed over it blandly, "just want to be back on home soil. Let me drive?"

"No prob, if you really want to," Van conceded awkwardly in his lanky way. It was rare Raven was this permissive, this polite, about what he wanted or as illustrative in why he wanted something. Usually it was: _'I want it and I want it now because reasons'_ which was fine but this was a pleasant change.

* * *

Whoever named their child _John Smith_ was, in Van's honest opinion, just asking for a life of troubled infamy. That old world style of name wasn't particularly common on Zi, not by a long shot, so it wasn't unsurprising that some Imperial fart had decided to run with the idea of calling their child that (after all most of the people Van knew with odd old names were Imperial: Karl, Thomas, Rudolf, Gunther…) but it didn't make it any less tempting to fate. As far as Van was concerned a guy with a name that superfluous had to be guilty of something and he was nothing if not an enforcer of karma.

Most of the people on their list just sounded suspicious in one way or another. One's photo looked way too young for their DOB, plenty had existing charges for funny things like '_indecent exposure'_ and '_public prostitution'_ (definitely not the '_concealed weapon_' or '_assault_' charges Van expected, which wasn't to say some of them didn't have those on their record, but there were at least four times as many speeding tickets) which didn't fit a classy workplace employee and gave Van more questions than answers, and then there were some who had obviously been neglectful in updating their details or paying their taxes.

"I don't even know why we're bothering," he groaned over the paperwork as they made their way up the gravel drive of another little suburban, "all of these guys have legit birth certificates and school records and everything."

"You can fake birth certificates, parents, immunisation reports…" Raven rattled off confidently. "Prozen did it all the time. Reese and I have a stock pile of fake IDs we passed round like cookies. Can you imagine what this thing can fake if it can psychologically warp people?"

"Point," Van conceded unhappily, drawing his badge to rasp at the front door as Raven crossed his arms beside.

John Smith was a floppy looking kind of man, older than Van but then not by much and looked more like he'd be at home on a park bench than in Death Surer. He was nice enough to let them inside the general, mundane, disarray of his home to chat and offered them tea or coffee from round kitchen curtains that Van had seen in an old folks' home once. He wasn't some kind of hit man that was rather obvious from the way he rattled nervously round everything like they were ticking time bombs.

"So," he sighed when he finally settled down in a blue couch, "are you going to arrest me?"

"For what?" Van blinked.

"I don't know," he admitted, "but can I tell ya the way that job's been coming back to haunt me I wouldn't be surprised; worst internship _ever_. Typical, the one time I listen to my mother and quit that textiles course I serve coffee to a dictator and end up on some list for the rest of my life."

"No, we're definitely not here to arrest you, if we needed to I figure it'd already be done-"

"So would I," John sighed, "should've seen how they cracked down on staff in that first month after you-know-who…well…" his eyes wandered a little uncomfortably over Raven before he made something of throat slashing motion at Van.

"-Right," Van breathed, "so look, we just wanted to ask you a few questions about the time the work you did for Prozen."

"What did you do anyway?" Raven frowned cuttingly. "I don't remember you."

"Domestic servant," the little bloke shrugged, "I did laundry, shined silver, shit- sorry! _Junk_ like that for a few years. Just happened to be for Prozen wouldn't you know it? Fucking lucky me- sorry! Ah-"

"Nevermind." the imperial desisted shortly in exasperation.

"Did you ever talk to Prozen?" Van interrupted for the poor man's sake. Better he stutter at him than Raven slam John's head into the coffee table.

"Not really," he whined, "I mean he talked _at_ me once or twice. Used to get in a tis some days and kick everyone out of the house. Don't blame him for wanting some privacy but we never got a word in with him. Not that I can say I _wanted_to."

"What about this guy," the hero ruffled in his seat, leafing through the folders to hand him a rather old photo of Hiltz which Van didn't think did the quality of the Zoidian's face justice at all. "Did you ever see him around? Ever talk to him?"

"Him?" He fished the photo from Van's fingers reluctantly with little more than an uneasy kind of confusion. Not many photos of Hiltz had made it to civilians because Hiltz didn't tend to get caught on a lot of security footage. "No, never seen him in my life, hey! You got Clancy on your list? Old fucker used to run staffing, real prat."

"That's confidential." Van blanked.

"Well fingers crossed he's dead then!" John grumbled to himself miserably.

"Look," he strained again, "did you ever see anyone suspicious around the house? Do you remember anyone Prozen spent time with?"

"Not apart from this one," John muttered waving idly at Raven with the tip of the photo prized between his fingers as he passed it back to Van, "saw you round with him all the time but I guess that's expected. You've really grown, you know?"

_"Apart_ from him?" John really wasn't working with Van here as the Republican tried to salvage what was left of Raven's dwindling patience and get them back out the door.

"Nope."

"Thanks."

Van was a hair's breadth away from cracking up on their way from the door to the rental car. Raven looked mildly murderous on the other hand when he slipped in behind the tinted windows and buried his face in his hands to groan stupendously.

"She's got us talking to the _fucking_ laundress." He reeled. "Didn't you _mother fuckers_capture anyone worthwhile?"

"A few," Van cackled as he fell into the driver's seat laughing, "then Hiltz blew up the prisons."

"This is useless." Raven spat awed. "She can't honestly believe we'll find something this way."

"Never know," he tried to keep a straight face but failed, "guy who cleaned the offices might know the whole story!"

"I swear," the maverick warned fiercely, "if in three months Reese comes back and tells me it was Hiltz the whole time I'm going to lose my shit."

"It probably was," Van scoffed mildly, "I mean who else is there? He fits everything we know so far, even if that ain't much, definitely my number one suspect till Reese finds something that says the Death Surer didn't like pilots with the recessive redhead gene or something."

"Irvine has money down this is some cruel joke by Dr D to get us all out of base so he can smuggle off new equipment."

"I'd believe it." He snorted. "Come on, four more and we'll call it a day."

* * *

1. I'm totally fabricating my own idea of Zoidian history/lifestyle here. I intend to do it frequently. I think they were probably pretty dark. No society is ever really well off but sane after all. Still this might just be because I've read _way_ too many Plink fics over the last seven years. I'm addicted to her depiction, sue me.

2. Things begin to heat up next chapter. Those with weak stomachs for the plague known as Yaoi might want to jump ship now before chapter 4 and 5 (and 6 is pretty bad too...)

Anyway kiddies, hope you enjoyed as always.


	4. Remember, Remember, the Fifth of

Hey Beautifuls: we're cuing the angst but the package includes smut so… that's good? Hope you enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 4: _Remember, Remember, the Fifth of November_

Despite the sheer stupidity of it all Van wasn't having the worse day he'd ever endured. The city they'd converged on wasn't a small place so lunch had the liberty of consisting of ice cream from that fancy Imperial chain that always made Van's mouth water and his wallet cringe. Their suspects were mundane no-name extras for the most part. One woman did some work in the laboratories but it was so minimal she had no concept of what was going on and Van didn't really think a mother of three was much of a candidate for Death Surer Buddy.

Everything turned sour round four in the afternoon when a security guard they were interviewing with that inane routine of questions got a bit too bold with his opinions. Van heard a fraction of it, the man's smarmy complaint, but he could tell that Raven's mood was disintegrating and the insult which concerned (among other things) Prozen's sexual appetites was the last straw. Van had been supping from his coffee one second and dragging Raven off the git the next.

Raven was fast over the coffee table, the rocking armchair the man sat in hit the wood work so hard the whole house shook like in an earth quake for a sheer second, and the maverick was going back for a third well placed punch before Van got him round the shoulders.

Erving, the security guard, had far too splotchy a record to risk starting a law suit at this point in his life (squatting in a rental Van suspected doubled as some kind of drug den) but nonetheless Van was rather prompt in vacating the premises.

"This is pointless," Raven snapped when they made it down the final creaking set of steel stairs into the communal courtyard of apartment block, "a fucking worthless waste of time."

"_Breathe,"_Van ordered, "I know you can keep your head better than this. It was one space head retard. Cool your jets. We gotta do the crappy jobs sometimes."

"I don't care if they're crappy," he hissed still rather venomously enraged, "I care if they have a point or not. This isn't going to help anything. It's a joke. I don't want to waste time like this."

So it was with thin exasperation Van slumped back into the car to make their way back to the rental joint while Raven fumed in that way that was both silent and electric at once. Van decided to skip the idea of a hotel tonight and instead to drift back into the wilderness with the Gustav and the Organoids where they were more themselves, more in their natural setting, and the rhythms of the air, the beasts and the shadows seemed to remedy or soothe Raven's gnawing temperament. He was exhausting to Van's steadier moods.

The Empire was so much more clustered than the flat, spread, landscapes of the Republic that always seemed so empty. Too many woods, too many hills and sharp corners permeated the landscape just beyond Imperial cities. They had a lot of cities at that but then the Empire had more time to build these places, more money to do it, and centuries to refine without their locales being subject to bomber runs (least till sixty years ago when the Republic got their first flying Zoids but even then the Empire was almost always on the offensive rather than the defensive in the war). Just three hours out of suburbistan the Organoids were calmer, the air was cool and the foliage overhead was thick.

When Van got a meal in them and the sounds of the city faded Raven eased considerably. Shadow slunk very close and their camp became a tight circle that Van was nearly afraid to move outside of for fear of pissing him off again when Raven finally relaxed his shoulders and stopped looking so distantly sullen.

Van was vaguely aware of time moving, only vaguely, without bothering to glance at his watch or find a clear view of the moons. The more it ticked on the softer Shadow's coils got till he was sprawled kitten like on the grass which Van took as a more external, visible, sign of Ravens nerves evaporating. Raven had been sitting across from him, frozen, for a good hour or more till abruptly but languidly he began to move round Van's very stalled body. In his stupor Van had fused to his spot and probably made an ass of himself with all the dumb staring he gave the Imperial as Raven cluttered about in and out of view like a wraith.

Raven forced something warm between his hands, another mug, wafting chocolate (Raven's cure- all for every aliment Van had ever known him to have) taking a place beside him with his own curative. Van would take this over Fiona's slap-your-face coffee but then that was the only harsh edge of Fiona where this was one of the few soft sides to Raven. He compared the pair of them frequently he realized but it was only reasonable considering the most one on one travelling he'd done was with one or the other.

He was so distracted with the thought even though he was aware of Raven leaving he didn't consciously notice till his companion was already gone. Van would've sat still but Shadow had tightened keenly again, head up in that stationary sentinel mode he believe Shadow held the whole night through when they were sleeping.

When Van rose, Zeke twitched to follow, but he shooed him down onto his back again so he could make a quick scan for Raven alone. It only seemed fair. The Organoids gave away so much of what they were thinking through their more obvious action it was hard for them to play at niceties effectively with Shadow or Zeke around.

The trees eased up about a hundred feet from camp. Van could stop weaving eventually to take an easier pace in his search. When he caught sight of the river he was more focused on the sheen of the water that drew his eyes up.

_Shit_, he cringed, the moons were red again. Not for the first time in his life he was off put by the sight. Whether he noticed it or not, in one way or another, he often discovered that before some new disaster they tended to bleed like that. The Zoidians had masses of literature on the superstitions of the Blood Moons and Van didn't blame them or write them off easily. Call him backwards but he couldn't help being a little caught up in superstition himself.

"Hey."

Van lurched, eyes roving, till he found Raven in the water four or five feet from the bank.

"What you doing?" Van fumbled.

"Swimming." He sighed.

_Naked_.

Van only realized that in a mess of sensory data: Raven's clothes on the bank, the pale swathes of skin he could see in the moonlight disappearing into the dark water, the unnecessary bounce in Van's heart rate before his mind caught up…

"Come in," Raven urged softly, like they were worried invisible parents might hear them.

Raven's hair was clinging to his cheeks, he was so pale lately he looked nearly ethereal, but his eyes were so bright it was eerie. Van's imagination conjured up images of sailors lured to their doom, demons, false promises, _things_…

"You don't know what's in there," he called hoarsely, some rivers had eels or fungus or crocodiles the closer you got to the coast.

"Fish," Raven retorted bluntly, "I can feel them."

It must've rained recently, the river seemed swelled, and sure enough when Van strained his eyes over the moonlight he could catch glimmers of them, lots of them, coursing in the water like ghosts. Were they odd colours? Definitely weren't the dull brown of the fish back in their pond in the Wind Colony.

"Come on," Raven urged again smooth to the point of serenely flippant, "you only live once."

Van had done stupider things before. He'd leapt into mass pools in old ruins clustered with Zoid bits and in little ponds in the desert (particularly when Fiona dumped their water). He wasn't keen however to try his luck with this vein of mischief. Not many bodies of water had predators like Raven in them after all.

Was that what he was worried about?

"Van," Raven pressed and the air felt colder, when was the last time Raven used his name? Gods it might've been years.

"Alright."

When did that come out of his mouth? He didn't over think it. Shirt over his head, pants down, gloves off, boots off… he was so casual about stripping it was routine. He wasn't exactly shy but when the water was round his calves, his waist, his chest, there was this burning whoosh of cold that intensified the aches in his limbs and made him suddenly more aware of them. They were so calloused after years of hard push Van wasn't the most sensitive wisp of a boy.

Raven went down ahead of him, rising back before Van could really concern himself, dousing himself and whipping the hair back from his face. As Van moved he began to appreciate how deep the water really was. When the soil gave out under his feet he knew there was enough space below him to dive. Once you let yourself go in it was surprisingly clean, easy, but it was pulsing with fish that weren't terribly frightened of bumping up against Van or brushing past him and the water was deep, dark, and nigglingly primeval. If he'd been alone Van might've taken the complete absence of concern the creatures of the depth felt at his presence soothing but here, where Raven felt more at home, more part of the river than human, it was disconcerting.

Raven waded, shifted, moved a little closer legs kicking to keep him afloat making their toes brush and Van had no idea why he was doing this. Raven hands emerged out of the darkness, dripping, to roam oddly over his shoulders. Van's first instinct was that the other might try to drown him but Raven squeezed his skin, traced his traced his clavicle, the tendons of his neck, the shape of his jaw till Van wondered what exactly he was looking for. Raven _was_ looking for something, without a doubt, but Van's body wasn't apparently satisfying his curiosity given that the Imperial handled him like he was foreign and altogether alien.

Thomas, Irvine, Rosso, Rob, Karl or Rudolf wouldn't do this. Van couldn't picture it. Fiona he imagined would be somehow more familiar with him. Surely if she ever went looking for something he wouldn't feel so completely separate to her. Though Raven's hands, his arms, his fingers were very much like Fiona's. Same pale and wiry quality and they disappeared into the water in such a way they didn't really seem attached to Raven at all. They were almost spidery when they came over his face, tracing cheekbones, rubbing lips, Raven's inhales stealing his exhales.

"What are you doing?" He murmured.

"Don't know," Raven sighed spell broken, his hands fell down Van's shoulders squeezing them and pushing back so Raven could kick his feet up and drift further away again leaving Van stumped.

It was the oddest sensation, like he'd just had a brush up with a particularly curious and ambivalent mermaid, and Van's lips burnt. He'd had experiences, sexual ones, but he didn't know if this counted in that category or if it was a totally different vein of incident. Either way there was this heaviness in his gut and an uneasy image of Fiona in his head.

* * *

Van was still soaked to the bone when they curled up in their sleeping bags for the night. Raven's eyes were twitching under their lids long before Van managed to force himself off into the lull. The red moons made the shadows strange round the fire and cast funny sheens of moonlight that made him a little fitful he supposed because he had the strangest dream…

The Wind Colony didn't have much, it had never had much, Van and Van's father and Van's grandfather hadn't had the liberty of much baby equipment like strollers or the like. That night he saw the old, sturdy, wicker basket that had carried him and his sister when they were newborns hung from their mother's arm like they were loaves of bread. Van saw things that were mostly memories: the cotton blankets mothers cushioned round their babes, the groceries they stuffed in beside them, the way they'd pop a piece of corn in the basket then hunch to tickle or soothe a babe in the same basket who suddenly sounded up announcing its existence.

Then Reese or Fiona…the image was contorted… for a minute he thought it was all the gory details of child birth and war mingled up, taking their fury out on one of the women he knew and making them hysterical with labour pains…then he thought it was pert breasts and hot bodies…then it was the same feminine, safe, bodies panting more with fever, pain, than arousal and he had a churn of his stomach that was queasy…

Finally he was sure it was Raven crying, not the tight little tears Van imagined he cried, but hysterical sobbing till his face was puffy, raw and unrecognisable…

He thought he was awake for a moment, exhausted in the dark, groggy and confused. He thought he heard crying. Then he must've been asleep again or else he imagined the whole thing.

* * *

They didn't have any more luck on the second day, or the third, they crossed plenty of miles to track down these people but the quality of the responses they received was fairly mundane. Van hadn't found a coffee boy or a technician yet who'd known both Hiltz and Prozen and wasn't already dead. Raven wasn't amused but Van found himself handling more long silences between them than another explosive fit. The maverick was all crossed up, arms folded, thoughtful about their situation and Van had hope that he might eventually remember something from his childhood that would give them a vital lead.

Raven's informant must've been getting sick of him given how often Van caught him texting or heard the tail end of phone calls he was sure he caught Raven making in the middle of the night. By day four the unspoken was palpably tense between them. If Van couldn't already tell the way the Organoids snapped awkwardly at each other was proof enough.

"Let's make a detour," Raven suggested and Van supposed it was now or never for the Imperial to be honest with him, "we're not getting anywhere like this."

"Where?" Van supposed nonchalantly. "You know something I don't?"

"I might have a place to start," he sighed, "but you've got to promise me you'll keep your bravado to yourself. Last thing we need is you shooting my sources before we can figure out what's going on."

"Let me guess," the hero chortled, "you've got someone up your sleeve who shouldn't be walking around without a prison detail?"

"You could say that," Raven grumbled, "they won't bring me in on anything else till I get you involved."

"Me?" Van shouldn't have been so surprised, sounded like someone wanted Van's good word before they came out of hiding to face Rudolf. Well, there weren't many better ways to win a full pardon than helping crush the Death Surer for a fourth time. "Alright, but we better let Herman in on thi-"

"Oh no," the maverick scoffed, "we're not telling Herman or Reese or anybody _squat_. You tell them and our friend will vanish into thin air. We either keep it quiet or we don't do anything."

"You can't just pretend you didn't tell me this," Van confronted, "it won't be good for you if I decide to do the right thing."

"You're threatening me?"

"I'm just saying," he sighed, "you've opened this can of worms. It's not like if I disagree I'll just forget you ever told me. We can't just do nothing now."

"Then trust me for a little while," Raven ordered, "just do me a favour and keep this between us for now because if my informant is jerking us around I'll be the first one in after you to drag him to trial and slice his head off."

"Fine," Van relented after a moment's consideration of Raven's hard eyes, "but if this gets too serious we tell Herman."

"Second he looks at us cross eyed," the maverick swore, "the _second _he does I'll cuff him myself."

* * *

Van wasn't sure what he expected but it wasn't anything chipper. If this person could contact Raven, knew about the Death Surer, and deserved a prison detail which they had _evaded_ then it wasn't the peon who served coffee in Evil HQ. Raven was too taunt for his comfort either, bouncing his knee too fast, glaring too much. If Van had to guess he was throwing the infamous Dr F on the table because the old man had never been caught rather he was one of the many_ 'assumed dead_' which Raven had once been included amongst.

"What is this place?" Van muttered as they secured the canopy of the Gustav in the fading sunlight sinking behind the building casting it, and everything else, in grand stretched shadows.

"Abandoned weapons manufacturing facility," Raven answered, "it's condemned. Owners can't sell it or repair it but the army stripped it of anything working or dangerous so it's effectively useless to everyone."

"Great." He grumbled.

The windows were cracked all over, spider webbed, but the fact they were still in frame looking down on them like reflective cat eyes was eerie. The steel of the front door groaned, the whole building looked green with rust, the light sockets were empty and the power was dead. What was worse than walking through the partial light of the dusty afternoon gloom hanging over the assembly floor was, typically, Raven leading them down the framed gangway steps into the earthen basement beneath. The entirety of the building felt like it might collapse over head in every howl of the breeze in the trees outside and the further they moved into the basement the more crypt like the atmosphere became.

At the bottom of the stairs was a hydraulic door, a security camera, both dead or so Van assumed until Raven knocked and the light in the keypad and on the record module flared to life. The camera twitched over them, Raven raised his face, Van found himself staring dumbly at it and the deadlocks unhinged within the panel of the door to allow it to slide open.

Raven's friend really didn't want to be found.

The interior of the basement was sprawled, more screens than walls or doors, in one extended studio space that obviously served as living facilities and pseudo laboratory. The light of the fluorescents was cut here and there by medical screens that made it incomplete and shadowed. Van knew there were blacked out sections in his immediate and extended fields of visions, corners and nooks, that made him jumpy.

He was an action hero, a farmer's boy, brutish and totally Republican so Raven would have to forgive him when their host moved into view and instinct totally overrode common sense. Van wasn't sure what he had attempted to do, a disarming mauver he knew so well he just fell into without needing to focus on the steps seemed most likely, but either way he ended up winded, sprawled across his stomach, with a knee in his lower back, one hand forcing his head into the floor, the other holding his arm between his shoulder blades terribly.

"Idiot." Raven grumbled but even that sounded like an uneasy attempt to check Van's vitals were still in tack.

"_Fuck._" Van groaned.

"Just because I'm older than you doesn't mean I don't remember how to fight Flyheight. It just means I've been practicing since you were in diapers."

Oh, Van remembered that voice, Van did _not_ like that voice.

"Get off!" He roared furiously. Mother fucker would not die.

"Barbarian," Gunther Prozen grunted, relenting only enough to allow Van to rise and the minister to pat off his hands on his thighs as if the Republican had dirtied him.

Van rolled his shoulders back into place, twisted, and found himself border lining livid.

"You knew?" He seethed.

"Cool your jets," Raven ordered brushing past him to come between them and very close to Prozen, "I knew but I'm still not sure I believe it…"

There was the subtlest tilt to Raven's head his expression utterly obscured from Van's intelligence. Prozen eased, fractionally, still so tightly bound and stiff backed like a real blue blooded aristocrat. Van could guess what Raven was looking for; honesty, some infinite realness that would tell them whether or not they were dealing with a man or another puppet. Van couldn't imagine how he'd begin to discern it for himself or where Raven would start after so many years.

"Hey kiddo," Prozen snorted.

Van nearly lost it in the air conditioning and he was sure he wasn't supposed to have heard it, intruded on it, or perceived how tired Prozen appeared to be. Raven flexed, back a little, as though he might as well have been hit but whatever resolved the moment happened between their eyes outside of Van's observation or invitation. He wasn't wanted in this.

"You're an idiot," Raven muttered, "don't ever do that to me again."

"Learnt my lesson." He groaned tightly. "No more power trips."

"How'd you escape?" The maverick reeled.

"Kicking and screaming. _On fire_." Prozen accentuated.

"Doesn't look like it." Van retorted sceptically.

"That's because my face was the last part of me fused to _Zoid core_." He hissed. Van cringed a little. He hadn't paid it much attention, Prozen had never been one to show a human amount of skin, so what he wore now so casually didn't seem any more comprehensively covering till the minister flashed Van a set of scarred finger tips he would have rather not seen.

"Shit."

"That's about the gist of it yes."

"Hey don't get tart with me!" Van groaned throwing his hands up. "You brought that all on yourself!"

"No I didn't." The man snapped. "I'd like to see you keep your wits after twelve months of black outs and hallucinations. You'd rampage a city too."

"_Twelve months?_" Raven wheezed.

"Oh yes," Prozen continued, "that _thing _had me under since six months before Zeppelin passed."

"Fucker!" The pilot appeared mystified he hadn't noticed sooner and Van didn't blame him.

"Why should we believe you?" Van demanded.

"Because who do you think warned you about the ruins?"

"Point." He conceded, slouching, arms folded tightly across his chest as he wore the heel of one of his boots. He didn't like this at all.

"It's still alive." Prozen added.

"You're sure?" Raven prodded.

"Absolutely." He hissed. "I saw the truth in Hiltz' mind when we were fused, no surprises there, and I know I wasn't the only one to drag myself out of that wreckage."

"I fucking knew it!" The maverick spat grinding his heel into the linoleum.

"So it _was _Hiltz?"

"Things didn't start going tits up till I met him you can be assured of that."

"He is the only male Zoidian we know about too." Raven mumbled. "So what's the plan? We blow his brains out?"

"Have to find him first," the man sighed, "besides that it might not work. I need more to go on before I know how to totally disable him. Not to mention there's Ambient to worry about presumably."

"We can handle that." Raven decided for them. "Three Organoids against one aren't stellar odds. I don't care who he is."

"We don't know everything he's capable of."

"I don't give a shit!" Raven grumbled. "He tried to kill me!"

"So did this one," Prozen retorted with a dismissive little gesture to Van and it was as if the Republican didn't even exist, like the Prozens were co-conspirators all over again. "We need to know what we're up against. It would be easier if I could get back into Eveopolis but I can't, the radiations skyrocketed, all we've got left are Reese's translations from the production plant where he was made. I'm going to need them."

"Oh no!" Van put his down stubbornly, slicing through the air with his right hand, drawing both disapproving pairs of eyes. "Reese can translate them and tell us whatever we need to know. I'm not getting you copies."

"Reese has never built a Death Surer." Prozen argued. "I spent _years_ studying it."

"Lot of good it did ya."

"Van!" Raven snapped harshly rounding on him. "Shut it!"

"What?" He grunted. "It's true! You can't honestly expect me to believe he wasn't responsible for anything that happened!"

"I wasn't!" The roar silenced both of them. Van didn't even know Prozen could make that sort of sound. The man caught himself, fingers to his temple, inhaling as he recomposed his dignity. "My entire life has been ruined by this. I just want to clear my name and end it. Forget it ever happened. You don't have to like me, I don't expect you to you've_ never met me_, but I didn't do _any of it._"

"I don't believe you."

"I do." Raven affirmed sharply. "Could you just trust me on this?"

"I wish," Van reeled sincerely, "but I'm seriously considering calling this in."

"They're less likely to listen than you." Prozen retorted. "I'll lose my head before I get a word out."

"He can help us find Hiltz." Raven argued.

"_We_ can find Hiltz on our own."

"Fine," the eldest scoffed weakly, "why not? I have nothing better to do than get executed for treason."

"We go now I'll put in a good word for you." The hero offered. "Last deal though cause this is as far as I'm willing to go down this rabbit hole."

"No! _No!_" Raven screeched between them, rattling the room, and Van's stomach gave a heave which played similarly over Prozen's face and gave them a second to appreciate each other. Raven was as close to hysterical as Van had ever seen him. "No one's dying!"

"It'll be fine." Prozen murmured. It was a loose attempt at reassurance but the man looked too tired for anything more convincing as he reached for Raven who twisted back.

"No!" He snapped. "I just got you back!"

"Well it's not like Hiltz is going to own up to it Raven even if you catch him. He'll drag me right down with him."

"_I'll make him_." He seethed dangerously but there was breaking in the voice and though the Imperial had turned back stoutly to Prozen Van realized he must've been crying. "Find him and I'll make him tell the truth."

"Alright," Van groaned under the weight of the thought, he couldn't take Raven crying. He couldn't feel like the hero when Prozen was so complicit, resolved, to die and Raven so distraught. Van didn't want to be the bad guy. "Help us find Hiltz. We'll get a case together for Rudolf and _maybe_ get you cleared of something. At least cut a firing squad off the table. In the meantime though you have got to work with me on this," he warned the rather rattled looking man, "cause you're _this _close to pushing me to taking you in. I've got know I can trust you before I'm going to stick my neck out for you. We good?"

"Sounds perfect," Prozen muttered though from the look of him he was evidently surprised, "you've got a deal." He made an awkward little tilt of his chin towards Raven who, Van feared, had begun shaking. "Can I have a minute though?"

"Yeah sure," Van shrugged uneasily backing up, "I'll be just outside."

"Thank you."

Van never thought he'd hear the day. It was fucking surreal.

* * *

Van wasn't exactly positive how long he sat on the rusting steps outside the hydraulic door with his face in his hands but he was too paranoid to leave. A small part of him was convinced Raven would miraculously change coat to disappear off into the ether with Prozen if he left them alone too long. Something sparked between them that was practically contagious as far as he was concerned. Prozen was an intimidating threat, wounded or not, because he had a hold over Raven Van could never get a sway in. Prozen had the advantage of _years_of shared experience and it was off putting to consider how close everything was to falling back to shit.

Prozen, Hiltz, Death Surer all check. Apocalypse was the only pretty young thing not at the party.

_Fuck_, why was he doing this?

He needed to take up smoking, he decided, foot bouncing from heel to toe on the earth. Eventually he couldn't take it and pushed off the earth in a fluid motion that brought him strongly onto his feet but he found himself too cowardly to go any further than the frame of the hydraulic door. In the basement beyond Prozen and Raven had moved off, out of view, behind one of the medical screens but the muffled crying he heard from the steps was infinitely clearer to him here.

"It's…you'll be fine…" was all of the garbled muttering he could make out from Prozen's smooth modality as he whispered over Raven.

Raven was still crying, hard, and Van had to struggle to make out anything the pilot gasped in his raving hysterics.

"_I don't want to die!_" Raven choked harshly, Van was positive, and Van was suddenly very small and cold in his corner listening in on them. It was a terrible whisper, horrific, but Van couldn't comprehend it the way Raven strained in pain over the syllables. "_I don't want to die!_" He moaned again, pitiful, and hoarse. It was weak, it sounded like a child, he was scared…

Van moved back to the stairs. He couldn't take it. He didn't want to think about whatever it meant. He half knew but he wasn't going to drag himself any further.

He had hit that stage of weary boredom where everything became foggy, trancelike, by the time Prozen snuck out to find him. Van was a little groggy to rise when the politician slipped something into his hand.

"I'm still working on finding Hiltz, should have a break in the next few days, call me." He explained as Van flipped over the card and snuck into his back pocket. "You better take Raven."

"What's wrong with him?"

"It's his business to tell not mine."

"Is he going to be okay?"

"I don't know," Prozen muttered, "depends on the sense you mean."

Van sighed, like getting blood from a stone these people, whatever, he gave up. He was getting Raven out of here and going back somewhere sunny where the people were sane. It was too bizarre down here.

* * *

1 Anyone else remember all those times in season CC that Van went swimming? When they met Moonbay? When Fiona threw the water out?

2 Dr F is from the Manga and he's a charming old coot I don't know why he and Dr D never got to compete angrily with each other over some comm. link during the war. It would've been hilarious.

3 I love Prozen. He had to be in this.

4 Raven and Van talk next time~


	5. We All Fall Down Part II

WARNING: smut in this chapter with increasing severity in the future.

* * *

Chapter 5: _We All Fall Down Part II_

Van meant to go back to base, lie and say they'd finished the interviews but Raven fell asleep beside him in the cockpit of the Gustav and he found himself along the side of the road with his face buried in his forearms. He dragged his hand through his hair. Van's head was throbbing. He was thinking too hard. He didn't want to see anyone when he was like this. He caught his fingers quaking on the dashboard and tried to steady himself.

"Why'd you stop?" Raven rasped tossing over in the front passenger seat in the darkness.

"I don't know." Van mumbled. "I'm just…I don't feel good."

"Why not?" It was soft, more from exhaustion than care but Raven was at least trying to be gentle with him.

"I'm worried about you." He confessed. "Back at base, last time you blacked out, you're sure they didn't find anything?"

They were both very quiet for a moment. They both knew, they must've, but Raven's eyes fell over his lap intently and made their way back up to Van's face as the Republican kept himself buried in his own arms.

"I'm dying." Raven admitted flatly scoffing at the cliché: "brain tumours."

"Can't they do something?"

"Frontal Lobe," Raven answered, "if they got them out I'd probably be retarded in the process. I didn't get a lot of it but apparently they think I've had them for years. Think they make me susceptible to amnesia or something, heh," he laughed tightly.

"_Fuck._" Van exhaled, half groaning, into his forearm. "How would you even…?"

"Radiation maybe," he theorised, "spent a lot of time round experimental Zoids in and after development. Hiltz didn't exactly have the best conditions to make that Geno Surer or the Death Stinger. I guess Zoidians must be less susceptible to it. Which makes sense."

"Fuck Rae," he'd never called him that, at least he didn't think he had when Raven was conscious. "Fuck."

"That's not one of the magic words Van." He joked dryly. "Try another."

"Don't," Van ordered, "this isn't funny."

"Of course it isn't." Raven retorted hotly.

"What do we do?"

"I want to find Hiltz." He answered. "I want him dead before me. It's the only way I can think to make this bearable."

"Why didn't you just tell me?" He reeled weakly.

"Should I have?"

"_Yes._" Van insisted.

"I don't know," the other confessed, "I was scared and pissed."

"Do you want me to tell Reese?" He offered. In any other circumstance he wouldn't have but he could appreciate how frightened, honestly, Raven must be. He could anticipate how difficult it would be to explain to Reese when they depended on each other so much to make life liveable. Van would never have ever wanted to tell Fiona something like this.

"No." Raven decided. "I don't want her know. I don't want her looking at me like that. I want her to treat me like me and not Nicolo."

Why argue? Van had his views on religion but when it came right down to the if or not as far as he was concerned people should be able to live out their lives in whatever consolidating way that made them happy. If that was how Raven wanted to die he should be able to do it.

God the thought hit him then, when he really let himself think it, and he felt his throat clench.

"Come here," he ordered.

"No." Raven sighed wearily.

"Will you just come here for five fucking seconds?" Van pleaded sharply, unfolding his arms, and he was sure his eyes were burning when Raven begrudgingly surrendered to shuffle over into his arms.

Van held him, more for his own sake, Raven's arms round his shoulders, Raven's face against his neck and Van's arms circling the slender body for dear life as he rested his chin atop the other's head. It wasn't right. You'd think Van would be used to the idea by now after trying to kill Raven himself or after the Geno Surer was destroyed but this seemed foreign, alien, unnatural and unexplained. There was no purpose to this and it was, for the first time, totally out of their control. Raven and Van had always wielded supreme power over their destinies. It was one of the bonuses of being a soldier that was felt throughout the globe. They controlled how hard they fought and whether they made it or not so this was something Van couldn't comprehend. This didn't happen to people like them. They died young in flames of glory or old and useless. This didn't happen.

Van must've been crushing him, he was holding Raven so tightly, but all it seemed to do was inspire the Imperial to dig his fingers into Van's back. The hero was actually afraid to let go.

"Stop," Raven ordered softly fingers digging between Van's shoulder blades, "it's my party. I'm the only one who's allowed to cry."

Was he crying already? Van sniffed wetly, fingers pattering over his cheeks, to feel the source of the burn that had overflowed. Well, what did you know, he was.

* * *

"Stop staring." Raven demanded of him quietly over his pointed shoulder.

"Sorry." Van muttered.

They had docked the Gustav. Van was walking with his bag slung over his shoulder, papers from the interviews in his hand, watching Raven balance along the edge of the Gustav's trailers up beside him and a little ahead of him.

Raven looked too healthy. Slender, well-formed arches, bright hues of colour: of blood red on snow on pitch black on indigo…all well assembled and lethally managed with such a natural experience it flowed right off him. Raven had always been more entity than human to Van. Human was too mundane. Humans were vulnerable, fickle, and stupid. Raven had always been too knowing, too supremely consistent in his nature of violent extremes, too devastatingly powerful to be totally the mundane handiwork of a man and a woman with no touch of old gods.

Raven couldn't be frail. Raven couldn't die. Van couldn't fathom that, as real as Raven strode before him now, he could be gone very soon and never come back. To think of Raven vanished, dead and buried was too monumentally surreal to digest. It couldn't happen. It wasn't normal, at least not for them, even if dying was one of the most natural things in the world. Raven had never represented mortality to Van, never, and to fathom a world Van would have to live in where there would shortly be no Raven was like trying to comprehend the moon disappearing, the sea drying up, without explanation. He couldn't do it.

"Stop it." Raven snapped a little more irritably over his shoulder as if sensing the sympathy and Van forced himself to avert his eyes.

Raven leapt down from the end of the second trailer as Van passed it, taking up a place beside him to the elevator. When the glass doors closed Van found them both leaning into the farthest wall.

"Do we have to report to Herman or Reese?" Raven checked.

Military politics was always half lost on him. He was used to a rather simple chain of command which relied on his ability to be fairly self-sufficient. Prozen and Hiltz had never really been afraid to let him roam but the Guardian Force was still rather cautious about how to manage their newest assets won in the war.

"Herman said to wake him up if we found anything major and if not just to brief Reese in the morning," he shrugged, "so we can hit the hay for the night."

"You going to go eat with Irvine and Thomas?" They'd probably be back by now chugging up in the cafeteria.

"I'll be right." Van replied. "You going to share with Reese for the night?"

Co-ed quarters weren't really militant style. One of the benefits of Guardian Force elite positions were reasonable private rooms however: two beds, one room, private bathroom was the general layout. No showers mind you, no kitchen utensils, nothing like that. Too much of a cluster fuck to manage, this wasn't a hotel after all, but as for Reese and Raven, again, they were still new assets Herman had chucked in a room together till other members of the gang felt a little safer sharing barracks.

"Where's Thomas?" Raven asked with an obvious inference.

"Think he's still bunking with Irvine."

"I'll crash with you then."

Beauty of their currently odd numbers meant for a little variation in who hid where for the night. The girls changed their orders round like they changed underwear, one night Reese and Moonbay would be bitching together, then Reese would be with Raven damning everyone (though mind they were the only couple brave enough to bunk together but Van had suspicions about what Moonbay and Irvine got up to on occasion), then Thomas would damn Irvine for the night or some other variation and the boys would have to admit they were just as bad. Another headache for poor Herman: he never knew where any of them were sleeping on any given night. If there was more hell going down he would've insisted upon a stricter running of order but till then havoc ruled. Karl called it the slacker side of Republicanism, playfully, and Herman liked to think they didn't all have bees in their bonnets like Imperialistic commanders with centuries of warrior tradition backing them up.

When Van had the great pleasure of tossing his burdensome bag on the single bed, Raven collapsing fully onto his along the opposing wall, he tried to count how many times they'd shared in the past six months. He'd lost count. Raven and Reese never used to mix the order, really they had greater nerves about their acceptance than anyone else on base, but then Reese let Fiona creep in and Raven crept off to Van. From then while Reese had unfolded her bunking options Raven had been pretty stable about either being with one or the other: Reese or Van. Well, till very recently when he'd taken a turn with both Irvine and Thomas.

Was this what death did to you? Made all your thoughts condense and centralise down on one person? Van planted himself on the edge of the mattress, forearms slack over his knees as he leant into them, and tried to remember when his father died. Had Van thought about anything else but his Dad for the first month after his death? No.

That had been a surreal experience. He was too young to picture that there was a world that went on out of his vision. Dad always came home and accepting that he would never come back without something physical was hard for him to swallow. They hadn't let him see the body, thought he was too little, frankly he didn't know if much of Dan Flyheight even made it back to the Wind Colony… Thousands of other kids could've told Van's story though, he knew that wasn't unique to him. He remembered vaguely waking up in the night convinced his Dad was coming home in the morning. He remembered forgetting he was dead because of all the time he'd spent away from home Van found it easy to just assume his Dad was off fighting if he wasn't at home. He remembered that dip into hysteria when it sunk in abruptly, after those moments, that Dan was dead. Dead wasn't even really a thing to Van then, it wasn't as if his Dad had ceased to exist in his mind, all he could understand of it was that death equated to '_never coming home_'.

Fuck he missed his old man. Dan Flyheight would've loved his friends, would've been proud of him, would've been a legend, would've hassled him about grand kids and sat him down for the talk… he missed losing that. Van missed not having those clichés. Oh he missed the more physical, real, emotional part of his Dad as he remembered him too but as he got older, as memory fades, his pain shifted to missing those moments everyone else had as part of a universal experience. He knew, in a war, that wasn't true. Lots of kids missed those moments but, damn, you still felt them.

Would he miss moments with Raven? He couldn't picture any immediately. His future was kind of vague right now but Van considered that when something happened ten years from now he'd ask himself: _what would Raven have had said about all this? What would he have thought?_ That could be worse but the more Van lingered on it, eyes running over the other pilot as on his back Raven stripped his boots with his legs up at ninety degrees, he thoughts of specific things. What about if Van had kids? He wanted to know how Raven would react, wanted to see his kids with his friends kids, wanted to perpetuate that bond. Surely his kids and Raven's kids, presuming they had them, would have an awesome connection? There was the potential for rich history there. Potential. That was what Raven's death would be: the end of potential. _Fuck_.

He swallowed thickly, fingers flexing, and was briefly aware he should've been more thoughtful about Hiltz or Prozen at the moment. They were obliterated though. This was more immediate to his day-to-day, more imaginable, this was the sky falling.

"Hey," Van found himself muttering, Raven's head twitching towards him in the semi darkness. "What were you like when you were a kid?"

"A little shit," Raven snorted, "keeping me busy was a full time occupation. If I wasn't exhausted I was a terror, if I didn't get my own way I was a hellion, and I got kicked out of every kind of sporting team or institution you can imagine."

"Sport?" He laughed. "You played sport?"

"What _didn't_ I play is a better question." He answered lazily. "Prozen spent a long time trying to figure out what forays would be_ safe_ways to introduce me to kids my age. By that I mean: what sports I couldn't kill my competitors in if I threw a tantrum. Hockey, baseball, cricket…anything involving a bat or a stick was a massive no-no. Martial Arts were reasonably successful till I learnt kill moves, almost drowned someone in swimming practice… I was a problem in training too. The day they let me use a flame thrower in weapons training Prozen had to leave a parliament meeting. I was smart, creative, but I only applied myself when it suited me. If I wasn't interested in something… well… let's just say I was never any good at music."

It was fortuitous to get him talking so reflectively. Usually Raven talked like his life had only begun at fourteen when he was presented to the world of modern warfare. Actually Van himself had trouble picturing Raven as a child. He seemed more like an entity that had sprung up fully formed akin to some old pagan cult god who had only been appeased recently with a ritualistic sacrifice across the planet.

"We didn't really have a big school program in my village," Van admitted, "went till the eighth grade. It was only sort-of a school too. The church ran it. Learnt a little piano, got dirty every day playing stupid games, hardly knew how to swim for most of my life and then most of what we actually knew we learnt from all the farming we were supposed to help with. Never going to find me reading some big book, not even these days, basically everything I know is stuff I only learnt because I had to use it."

"You couldn't get me out of something if I liked it." Raven chuckled. "Book, song, training simulation… Prozen and I used to have screaming matches when I was older, not his thing, but we figured it out. He was good at dealing with me. I don't know how he beared it. I was a monster."

"You were a kid," he dismissed, "I was pretty despicable myself. I don't know how my sister managed it; she had to grow up fast, I was impossible to deal with. I'd spend days in the desert and miss school, not tell anyone where I was going, bring back scorpions and spiders and snakes and scare Maria witless which I thought was hilarious. It was just easier in the desert cause there was so much space and so little for me to break. You were stuck in a city and Prozen can't have had much time."

"I'm not going to make excuses." The maverick muttered. "I know I was a shit and don't you make me any because if you get all super sympathetic on me I'm going to out of my fucking mind."

"Okay," Van relented gently, "I can't deny you were bitch-ass crazy when you were stuffed on hormones."

"_Fucking hormones_," Raven groaned, he was dripping with loathing at the experience of puberty.

* * *

Van was exhausted. The bed was warm and soft and the blankets were thick and he couldn't sleep. He sighed at the grey ceiling, tracing paint chips, and threw his forearm over his eye and across his forehead. With one eye to his left he could see Raven curled on his side, facing the wall, and knew neither of them were really asleep. Raven slept with his back to a wall, always, it was part of his paranoia. It was why Van always had to give him first pick of beds in the hotels they stayed at or he'd be irritable and crabby in the morning, it was why Raven always had his sleeping bag nearest the Gustav trailers, it was one of those subtle things you picked up on stuck together.

Raven's legs moved under the blankets. The Organoids clunked on the floor effectively barricading the door. Van wished they had a window to stare out.

Raven shuffled, pushing the blankets back, sighing under Van's watch and he was actually relieved, to his great surprise, when the Imperial's bare feet hit the ground of the room and led him to the edge of Van's bed. Raven sat, Van's hand found his elbow, and in a moment of relatively silent motion they tugged at the blankets, rearranging, till Raven was lying next to him.

Van's arm round his shoulder, Raven's head under his chin, the space compacted them both onto their sides and frankly he was rather glad for it. He wanted Raven here. It helped somehow.

He was almost gone, breathing steady, tripping off to sleep eventually when Raven twitched with a kind of languid unease. The imperial couldn't seem to settle, Van didn't blame him, but he was left bemused when the atmosphere shifted and Raven's fingers traced the tendons of his neck. Van couldn't think of stopping him, why would he? But it was unnaturally delicate touch for the sort he typically associated with Raven.

Cold finger tips ran over his neck, Raven pressed closer, they trailed over Van's shoulder in all its structures, over his clavicle between Raven's mouth and his collar bone, over every bare ridge of skin. Van thought about the river. The room was suddenly dark, supernatural, and alien. It was like a lover, Van knew what that felt like, but no one, however amazed by his reputation, had ever been so forwardly appreciative of his body. Raven felt the structures of his skin with a kind of discovery and familiarity like he knew every trail of bone intimately. Intimacy, closeness, affection, appreciation…

Raven moved like he had god given right to touch him, like he might as well have done a thousand times, and the more he did the more Van's heart fluttered and sleep faded from his focus. Van held him tighter and Raven's palm glided down his pectorals to his navel where they were smashed together by the space. Van rued momentarily why he slept in so little and Raven in so much and decided it must've gone back to the climates they'd been raised in. That seemed irrelevant at the moment but thought was drifting over him rather hectically. Raven buried his face deeper against Van's neck and for a split second he was convinced Raven would sink his teeth into it like an apple- _crunch_- and split the skin. Instead he nuzzled closer, palm skirting, fingers spreading over his side and up Van's back and then down and back between them in long slow gestures.

Raven's thumb found his bare hip under the rim of the boxers, Van's hand found Raven's and his fingers pressed into the fabric of the slacks. Raven's hand ran calmly over his navel, their knees knocking, totally smashed together minus that window of space just between them there. Raven drifted over the fabric, it seemed inevitable, just a little, and to the surprise of both of them found heat. Van groaned. Raven let out a sound, sigh or gasp it was intelligible along Van's neck, and ever so cautiously moved.

What the fuck was wrong with him? Van was in a black spot outside thought, he was sure, and Raven must've been caught up in it. The imperial kissed his clavicle, it was a barely noticeable flex against his neck, and squeezing his arms round him Van kissed his temple. Raven's hands were slipping then under the elastic, Van moaned, Raven stroked. Shit…

Panting followed between the pair of them. Van rolled, twisting onto knees over Raven who shuffled onto his back. Van raised himself on his haunches the blankets only shifting slightly. Raven brushed their foreheads, Van nuzzled at his cheek with another grazing kiss, the imperial's hand cupped his cheek while its twin ran over Van's arousal languidly. Van's knees flexed, Raven's legs spread round them to give them both stability and the position was suddenly intensely vulnerable for both of them in their own ways. The Organoids rumbled, acutely aware of everything, and the pilots ignored them. Nothing else existed for a moment, no thoughts, nothing but a void beyond their island as the heat rose. Van's hips rocked as well as they could in Raven's grip, Raven breathed through his mouth, Van moaned.

It was too much, too intensely close but cold for him and Van crumbled under the distance. He wavered on his limbs, tugging Raven's digits off him gently but insistently and then it all fell into place. Raven knew somehow what he wanted, it was an easy and ready translation, he threaded his arms round Van's broad shoulders and let the Republican settle his hips between Raven's spread legs. Raven's fingers instantly tightened, Van's face buried in the bed by his, the Republican's elbows worked to give him purchase as he ground down undulating them against each other. Hot, rubbing, half recreating and imagining something completely more entrapping Van rocked his hips down into Raven's and the imperial's heels dug into the mattress so he could arch up to meet him. They were slow, low, jerky motions that fell into rhythm. Raven's thighs flexed round his hips, Van found them purring, moaning, soft and hushed and fevered at each other.

It was nearly enough, good, wrong, teasing, broken. Van made their faces brush, that seemed more intimate than anything, somehow it was all supernaturally surreal, secret, and he couldn't compare it to anything more welcome in the daylight. It felt amazing in a thick, dark, warm and so very simple way but Van could feel his mind turning over sickly. This was _Raven_. It was an idea that was both very foreign, distressing and intensely erotic all at once.

Raven held him fast, everything felt right, Van had rush of unprecedented primal dominance in it. The other let Van move down against him, re-enacting another mode of domination, and Van found himself working harder, wanting to hold him, wanting him. Raven let him and it was the suggestion that Raven would let _him_ do _that_ with him that…_God_. Van's lips fumbled over his jaw. It was intensely private and revelatory to conceptualise. Van knew, intuitively, that there wasn't another man currently living that lucky.

Raven's fingers flexed, became spider like and desperate on his shoulder blades, he moaned low and purring brokenly ground his hips up into Van more strongly. Van felt powerful, wanted, he almost spluttered and then they were both moaning. It wasn't the rapturous climax of raw sex, Van knew that feeling too, but it found that gooey, drawn out, kind of secretive pleasure he usually associated with hours of fondling.

Van was sprawled atop him, Raven clutched around him, suctioned together with two sets of impossibly tight arms and digging fingers. They panted still somehow desperate and oversensitive, moaned when they disentangled stiffly to settle back on their sides. Raven twisted, pressing his back into Van's chest and the republican took his cue to hold him like some valiant hero too tired to feel guilty and too content to fight dozing off.

* * *

Van groaned. His head was pounding under the hard light. That was the downside of no windows; he couldn't acclimatise himself to the dawn slowly. It was either pitch black or suddenly burning in the room. He was groggy enough to register his first stupid thought as little more than a comment about how curled Raven's hair seemed to be after he'd just woken up. The Imperial was already buttoning up his jacket. Raven made him feel scruffy when he wore this assemble rather than his combat suits or slacks. It made Van feel like he should've been in a better made uniform.

Raven left, wet from a shower Van had slept through, with little more of a good morning than switching the lights back off as he left.

Van hissed as he eased onto his back. Oh gods… what the fuck had they done? His hand came over his forehead laxly as he swallowed and he knew they'd crossed a line they shouldn't have. Van had better control of his junk than that. Van was smarter than last night supposed. Van kept his love life well away from his closest companions if he was unsure. If he was going to experiment, to make a mess, he'd decided after a word of advice from Rosso that it was going to be with someone who wasn't a massive fixture in his life.

Van had stuck to that. He'd dated, he'd fucked around, but he'd never crossed that line with Irvine, Thomas, Moonbay, Fiona, Rudolf… he'd made damn sure that if he ever found himself wanting something with them, like he did in odd moments, he'd approach it slow with sovereign respect because once you crossed that line with an old, dear, friend it was impossible to put it back if things went awry. If Van messed it up with Fiona he might lose her and vice versa. Call it paralysing but he considered it cautious.

Raven was an emotional mess. He'd never exhibited much stability for relationships, intimacy seemed too totally off put him bamboozled like it did Thomas and Van knew that. Van knew Raven probably had no idea what he wanted in love, what he wanted from another human being in general. Van knew Raven needed their closeness, just like Reese, to relearn how to function among people. He knew Raven needed this simple and uncomplicated. He knew he needed it that way, it was charged history, and he knew damn well that right now Raven was worse than ever. Raven was dying. He was doubtlessly scared but being him he probably had not way to work through that healthily if Van knew him like he felt he did. Raven needed him now more than ever given how he was refusing to confide in Reese and how little they could trust Prozen.

Van groaned low and pained. He'd had a moment. He'd thought too much with his dick and not his brain. It felt amazing sure but now the memory was tainted and awkward, an embarrassing mistake, because he'd never felt for Raven in that way. He'd never had that line of thought. He'd never considered it and never wanted it.

Raven might have started it but he knew better not to jerk them both around. Raven got a momentary pass given he was likely an internal wreck. Van would have wanted human closeness too given the situation but this complicated it…

* * *

When Van hit the cafeteria it wasn't hard to know where he was wanted. Fiona beckoned, Reese raised her head, Raven tipped back his liquid breakfast of coffee and Van took his seat.

"Haven't seen Moonbay yet," Van greeted the girls, "Dr D finally drive her to madness?"

"No, they've got a project now," Reese grumbled, "can't get the fuckers out of the engineering lab. Every time I walk by the old man's convinced they're about three seconds away from storming Eveopolis while Moonbay's resigned herself to not putting down her screwdriver before doomsday."

"Sounds about right," Raven sighed, "what about you, you useless hag, get anything done while we were gone?"

"_Ha-ha-shut the fuck up_," The Zoidian chortled, "I've been waiting for you to drag your lazy ass back with the interview notes and helping Blondie translate."

"You don't know your I's from your U's," Fiona teased, "but we're getting there. Found all sorts of new details about the construction of the pilot."

"Head Researcher had a blooming obsession." Reese sneered. "Insidious kid probably had him wrapped round its little finger."

"He was tiny," Fiona defended, "he probably didn't even know he was manipulating people with the Rare Hertz pulse. The Head Researcher was very aware of its capabilities. I'm sure he would've taken precautions."

"Wasn't little when it worked over Hiltz and Prozen," Reese snorted vengefully turning to Raven, "I still can't get the med report out of my head. Thing killed its surrogate when they tried to birth it."

"Bitch not while I'm eating." The maverick ordered cradling his mug.

"Coffee doesn't count as a meal."

"I think it does." Fiona argued.

"Amen," Van chorused, "and if coffees don't count your instant noodles don't either Reese."

"Lot of you know shit all about nutrition."

"Well if you're going to ruin my meal at least give me the specifics." Raven sighed. "What do we know about this thing? And, for the record, until you tell me otherwise I'm nicknaming it _Hiltz Junior_."

"Already beat you there," Reese conferred and they clinked their mugs together in a little toast, "Mini-Hiltz was apparently built a lot like Fiona but our very own custom-built, one of a kind, pilot for their big bad Death Surer to stop the revolutionaries and rioters during the war. Genetic engineering, implants, hormone manipulation… you name it."

"Step by step," Raven demanded blandly.

* * *

More on that next time, have a good week in the meantime guys.


	6. Mary, Mary Quite Contrary

Hey guys~

* * *

Chapter 6: _Mary, Mary Quite Contrary_

"Implanted it with some kind of cells," she elaborated, "they apparently connect it to the Death Surer remotely. Massive range. The idea was that he could effectually pilot it from across the other side of the planet. The signal running constantly between it and the Death Surer, because both it and the Zoid emit and received, causes the Rare Hertz. The Death Surer pulse makes Zoids lose their shit and the pulse Mini Hiltz produces apparently does something similar to humans and Zoidians. It's kind of like my abilities. They noted when he got a little bit bigger that he was consciously using it to manipulate staff into doing what he wanted."

"A bit bigger here meaning three or four," Fiona clarified compassionately more to Van, "he was _tiny_. They purposefully made his hormones flux between levels of high and non-existent testosterone to make him more aggressive so they could get him to fight. They made war a game-"

"-Because they didn't have time to wait another four or five years for him to grow," Reese intervened curtly. "They needed the Death Surer _yesterday_. So yeah, they made warfare a game, the psyche reports talk all about the conditioning. The techies were intent on getting all the glory for stopping the war with their super weapon-"

"Which completely screwed them over," the blonde retorted hotly, "because of how they raised him when they ordered the retreat, when they beat the rioters, he didn't _want_ to stop. It was fun to him. So he started destroying everything even without any enemies. It wasn't his fault. It was conditioning."

"It was batshit fucking crazy." Reese snapped. "Little shit turned half the planet to desert. They were going to put him through rigorous psyche evaluations once the war ended, make him stable, keep him on hand to scare the rebels into submission. Make him some poster boy champion of Zoidian order. Fat chance they got."

"Why not just control the Death Surer remotely with a command unit?" Raven snorted. "Link it up to some command centre somewhere in the capital and control it from there."

"Death Surer had spirit," the Zoidian sighed, "needed a more direct link with a Zoidian through an Organoid before it could behave. It wants a partner to sync with. It was real Old World kind of core at the heart of its construction. They could never quite figure out how to make Zoids massive without almost making them aware to compensate for all the specific hydraulics, power and AI systems needed to keep them upright. Then, of course, the other justification was that command centers could be infiltrated, that rebels could steal the equipment or the staff and hijack it which would've left them royally fucked."

"It was a mess," Fiona reiterated. "Obviously the Death Surer was nobody's first solution to the problem. It was a last ditch. There were almost one and a half million rioters when it first activated and half of those were organized groups of revolutionaries."

"What were they rebelling against?" Van balked.

"Poverty gap, taxes, restrictive oppression... stuff every society bangs on about." Reese sighed. "Zoidians had a very specific class structure, an order, to create Paradise and they maintained it by forcing mood stabilizers on the entirety of the population. Some people didn't like being drugged, obviously, so rebels started to refuse to take them and when you take em off their meds after a life time of usage no one had any idea how to control their tempers, how to handle their feelings when they were more extreme and they were incredibly extreme when they were suddenly unfretted."

"Fuck me," Van whistled, "that does not sound like paradise."

"Hey, perfect system or not, it was more than three thousand years of idyllic happiness down the crapper in less than ten years." She snorted. "Years of rising revolution, little Hiltz was five when they sent him out, another four years later the Zoidians were all throwing themselves into pods."

"So about nine then?" Raven settled. "Why didn't the Zoidians just execute the little fucker?"

"Had the entire interiority of the scientific division bent over backwards for him with that mental manipulation." She chortled. "The Head Researcher and his posse took him into hiding. He could control the Death Surer from anywhere. The army couldn't find him and then when they did most of the staff went down fighting to protect him. A couple got away apparently and snuck him off into cryo-stasis. By then the planet was so destroyed and underpopulated the Zoidians just decided to mothball the Death Surer, call it a wash, wait for the planet to become liveable again and then deal with it or make it someone else's problem. Aka enter Humans."

"Fucking magnificent." Raven scoffed toasting the Zoidian again. "How old are we guessing he is now?"

"At the youngest, maybe fifteen? Oldest could be eighty or something ridiculous. I'm not ruling Dr F out of our options."

"I'll bet my spine it was fucking Hiltz."

"Probably was." Reese sighed. "Half the reports were fiddled with later when the Head Researcher ran off with him into hiding so we've got nothing as far as details on his Organoid or his appearance. We got jack."

"We know it's a man, we know they had contact with Hiltz and Prozen, that narrows the field substantially." Fiona reminded. "Besides poor thing might not even know what it's doing, might not have any memory of it like I didn't for years. When we finally do find them I'm putting that up for consideration."

"I'm abdicating execution." The other retorted curtly entirely unsympathetic.

"And I'm with her because it's going to be Hiltz." Raven snorted.

There was a joint wave of glances in Van's direction and throwing his hands up he relented to make a decision.

"I ain't swaying either way till we find it." He answered then, to Fiona's frown, corrected himself marginally: "till we find _him _I mean. By the way, you two are sure you don't remember anyone who stuck out?"

"Hiltz and Dr F," Reese shrugged to Raven's appreciative nod, "both of who are basically MIA. No one else really fits."

"Unless it was Major Ralph," Raven snorted, he and the Zoidian woman had quite a cackle between themselves at the suggestion. "He's dead anyway."

"Unless it's been masquerading as a complete nobody but I doubt you lot found any suspicious coffee boys."

"Nope," Van sighed, "but I swear everyone who ever worked for Prozen is bonkers. No offense to you guys or anything."

"Reese still is a little bonkers," Fiona teased though it was coloured, ever so slightly by the passion of their disagreement. Reese was gentler with her at least, a good sport, and settled for sticking out her tongue to settle the issue in the general direction of the blonde.

"We better get together the rest of you and do a briefing," the petite woman grumbled glancing at the mounted office clock, "where the frig are little Schubaltz and Irvine?"

"I'll grab them and meet you in meeting room 4A," Raven shrugged pushing back his seat, "you coming Van?"

He blinked, nearly nervous but shuffled it down back to his normal confident fodder.

"Can't leave you to do it by yourself or we'll get them to the meeting room in pieces." He joked taking suit after Raven. "Later lovely ladies."

"Bye Van!" Fiona chirped.

* * *

Van felt a wave of relief seep over him when Raven asked nothing untoward and as a matter of fact played it like today was as absolutely normal as possible. This was their solution apparently, not the most mature one, but pretending last night didn't happen seemed as good as idea as you could get to put things back in order. So Van let the day fall into functional parts: get the others, meet, pop in on Moonbay to see what was hanging, eat, work out, confer with Raven about Prozen finding Hiltz, sleep…

He must've been the only one who found the elevator ride to the guys' quarters tense when the steel slapped shut and they began to ascend. Raven didn't appear to give a shit or even know he should. As comforting as that was you had to wonder what else Raven could keep under wraps.

Van was fairly talented regular about keeping his sex life secret. If Raven was sexual his love life was as silent as the grave when it came to being forthcoming. Van couldn't picture anyone with Raven, couldn't picture himself with Raven, but in the same inappropriate thought he was finding it difficult to think of Raven as asexually geared as he'd expected. Raven was more revealed to him now as a sexually flourished being and Van was finding it an image difficult to divorce back to that asexual warrior image. Sex seemed to fit more with the pagan god aesthetic.

Had Raven done the same thing with someone else? Irvine even? Played coy, made the leap and then both embarrassed pretended it hadn't happened? If Van didn't know any better he'd be convinced himself that their rutting last night hadn't even happened…

Stomach dropped. Van was amazingly somber abruptly. His entire thought process from the morning reversed, inverted, with a painful screeching halt just like the elevator when he thrust his palm against the emergency stop.

"Wha-?" Raven didn't get any further.

Either Van's hands or his hips slammed Raven into the far wall of the space. Whatever made impact first was a mystery but they did. Raven was smashed between Van and the steel then, bad puns about a rock and hard place abounded in his head, the Republican's body flush to his, accentuating his height advantage, his thicker fingers curled round Raven's wrists.

Van was an idiot but it didn't matter though because when he kissed him rough, for the first time, Raven somehow melted acceptingly all while tugging at his wrists which Van eventually let free. Van was groping, all hands, over Raven's sides and back to drag him closer while the Imperial cupped his cheeks and fell very submissively into it. Van hardly noticed beyond primal instinctive joy utterly distracted by the rush of his lips finally finding Raven's. Soft, wet, firm they were full but distinctly masculine and young. Van sighed into it, Raven pushed back up to him fingers curling in Van's hair till his scalp ached and his ponytail railed in complaint and the republican couldn't have cared less.

He didn't know what he was doing. There was a part of him, not a small part either, shouting: _Fiona! Fiona! You twat!_ That was crumpled aside when, to his own surprise, Van's hands grasped, hooking, along the under sides of Raven's thighs as pulled the imperial up to wrap his legs round him. It served no purpose, no need, Van just somehow wanted the maverick's weight dependent upon his strength. He liked it. He wanted to be the one propping him up.

"You ever- I mean…" Van fumbled roughly unable to make himself stop kissing despite how the idea frazzled him stupidly. It frustrated him, angered him. "With Irvine or-"

"Just you." Raven managed between his lips as Van caught them. He had to firm his grip on Van's cheeks to hold him at bay while trying to elaborate his point. _"Hey_. It's just been you here. Why would I? With those idiots-" Van had fought his way back to kissing him unable to cease and Raven purred.

What was doing? He was an idiot. Van repeated the thought to himself. Guilt rose, came back and left in sync with the tides of when they touched and fell apart but Raven cleaved to him responsively and neutralised so much of it with simpler satisfactions Van wanted so badly.

"_Van_-" Fuck, he needed to say his name more often. It was- "Van stop!"

Raven pushed at him, flustered and ruffled to try and soothe him as he fought the Republican off.

"We've got to go." He emphasised insistently trying to reach Van with short phrases. "The meeting."

"Right," Van rumpled gruffly, trying to reign in his self control, be reasonable, but then he thought of Raven dying and bruised the plush lips with his own harshly in one more, the last he told himself, silly kiss.

He was forced to release Raven, now a little worse for wear as his boots slapped heavy down onto solid ground, and the Imperial was very brisk about getting them out of the elevator which Van was immediately grateful for. Raven straightened, couldn't seem to stop, and Van found them both a bit self conscious as they reached the barracks. The maverick still seemed tossed, flushed, lips plundered red even as he wiped at them with his fingers and Van was concerned everyone would somehow know what he'd done. Van had, he realized, iniated it. Not just allowed it, Van had _started_ it.

They were outside the door, Raven was going rattle it, but Van caught his upper arm in a moment of weakness.

"Later?" He affirmed.

"_Later_." Raven stressed irritably wrenching his arm free.

How would Fiona react to this sort of desperation on his part? Frankly Van didn't think there would be such desperation with her. He knew she'd never leave but Raven wether of his volition or not…

"We're coming!" Irvine hollered boisterously as Raven rattled, kicked, the door.

"Hurry up then!" He ordered. "Day's not getting any younger!"

"It's barely nine you fuckwad!"

"Fuck you!" Raven snorted back unceremoniously. "I want to get this shitty meeting over with!"

"Come on Irvine," Van moaned as Thomas scampered out into Raven's chest and flung himself back, "what's taking so long?"

"Keep your pants on and let a goddamn man shave!"

"Here I was thinking you were fucking Schubaltz." Raven grunted to himself.

Flabbergasted Thomas broke in delirious little complaints at the insult but was much too distraught to explain to Irvine when the merc finally exited their quarters.

"What's wrong with him?" Irvine grumbled towards the green eyed Imperial.

Raven and Van shrugged complicity while Thomas turned another undiscovered shade of red. Call it misplacement of misdeed.

* * *

Raven kicked him out of the briefing room after Reese had filled in the details from their missions. All up they had diddly squat, ignoring what they knew of Prozen, so what the Zoidian and the Imperial had to discuss Van couldn't imagine. Frankly he didn't want to imagine. Van was quickly becoming jealous, possessive, in ways he'd never known himself to be…

"You right Van?" Irvine quirked throwing and arm round him. "Raven driving you out of your head?"

"Could say that," he snorted.

"Better you than me," the mercenary groaned, "last time we tried to have a civil conversation I lost a tooth."

"Makes two of us," Van joked dryly in their swagger but he was trying to make a move to leave. His single minded focus was disturbing. He couldn't shake the suggestion everyone somehow knew.

"I'm going to go see the old man, you want to come with?"

Moonbay, Dr D, distraction, socialization, normalcy…things not associated with Raven, the Death Surer or sex. _Hallelujah!_

"Sign me up."

* * *

Dr D and Moonbay were working their way through rather ingenious solutions. Strengthening Zoids with Gustav like armour and special equipment to brave the radiation. If they could work that out, develop cameras to withstand the heat, they could bring Reese in and backwards engineer some of her bugs to remote control the devices long distance. It was fascinating really. Van didn't understand a great deal of it but he was a kid in a candy store at the concepts. The armour they had sprawled about the place was fantastical by his reckoning. Even Irvine quirked a smile and an appreciative whistle at the sight, it really was amazing what they'd achieved.

Rob popped by just as Van was getting his head up from the mess of circuits and disentangling his brain to leave.

"How ya been?" Van began as they left the techies tinkering.

"Worried about this mess," Rob sighed cocking his thumb back over his shoulder as they strolled, "I'm going to go grey early."

"You and me both." He agreed. He had great sympathy for Herman's troubles. Van had his own yet for the most part he endured in a slightly different world a bit more closeted from such human pains of age. Well, it was natural Herman was almost ten years older than him or something along those lines. Van never put much stock into noticing.

"It gives me the heebie geebies," the Republican confessed, "more I hear from the ladies the more I wonder if Fiona could do the same thing to us."

"She wouldn't." Van dismissed casually. "Not Fiona."

"Who knows," Herman shrugged passively, "I don't. Makes you think though. What about Raven and Reese? They told you anything particular? They must have suspicions with this Death Surer Pilot stuff."

"Haven't much spoken to Reese," he deferred, increasingly cautious of the line of questioning.

"Raven talks to you though?" The blonde supposed but wavered, sighing, under Van's hardening stare.

"Didn't know I was supposed to be interrogating him too." Van snorted stiffly. He didn't like this.

"I don't mean it like that. Just trying to think of all possible leads." Rob soothed sincerely. He was haggard. "I've just been tossing it around in my head and, you know, Fiona made a good point. What if this kid doesn't remember? Or doesn't know? Or doesn't want us to know?"

"They probably don't," he retorted blandly, "what's ya point?"

"I'm just saying Van," he prefaced carefully, "I'm not pointing any fingers. People change. This thing was a kid and for all we know now he's a law abiding adult. I just think maybe it's worth considering Reese and Raven in our line of suspects. We might be skirting around it here on base, being polite, but we all know they had plenty of opportunity."

"Raven's not Zoidian," Van found himself retaliating bluntly, "and Reese is…well…"

"I know, I know," Rob defended hands in surrender. "I'm not trying to ferret it out here Van. I'd actually be relieved if it was one of them. After all, they're on our side, we can help them. I just want to see if you'd notice anything that might give an old idiot like me some peace."

"Nothing," he groaned, relenting his frustration to sympathy in a natural cycle. "I know you're right… maybe it is one of them… but if it is then, like you said, they're both definitely on our side but I haven't spotted anything to tell me either way. Don't suppose Fiona has either."

"Nah," Rob sighed, shuffling his hands in his pockets. "Listen though, if Raven or Reese do… confide in you. Let em know they shouldn't be worried about being forward with the rest of us. Would save everyone a lot of trouble and put all of us at ease. Hell, we might even be able to finally say we've neutralised the Death Surer onto _our _side. Alright buddy?"

"Yeah," Van nodded, forcing himself to ease up and smile. It was an off putting idea. "If anything happens I'll push em your way. So long as you promise me you'll be reasonable."

"Hey, not my job," he laughed. "The President and the Emperor both gave Reese and Raven full pardons. Far as I'm concerned that wiped whatever might've happened especially if what Fiona said about this kid's conditioning is true."

"Well I'll keep my eye peeled." Van promised. "Don't work too hard."

"You too."

* * *

Poor Rob didn't know what Van did though, couldn't factor in the considerations he did, and maybe the exhausted chap was better off for it. Probably served Van right to endure knowing Raven was dying, Prozen was alive and Hiltz in hiding…

Actually Raven was in hiding too today. Sun was bleeding across the horizon when Van found him in a watch tower looking sullen. How many more of those did Raven had left to watch?

"Whatcha doing?" Van greeted.

"Standing." Raven answered blandly dripping a non-lethal brand of sarcasm as the Republican came to lean beside him. He tilted his head ever so slightly before continuing dryly: "not going to jump me are you?"

"Not here." He snorted. "That'd be flipping unprofessional."

"Pfft," Raven scoffed, "you know best Captain Elevator Etiquette."

"That was an accident." Van grumbled. It was nice to be talking about this with a sense of humour. It made it less weird. The longer between the incident the more Van regained his hunger but lost his nerve.

"You _accidently _body slammed me?"

"Accident with motive then."

"I'll remember that next time I get charged," Raven chuckled, "if it's good enough an excuse for the great Van Flyheight well…"

"You heard anything from…?" He bridged gently.

"He's going to call us with info when we get deployed next."

"Good," it wasn't, but Van wanted to progress. He didn't like the thought Hiltz was out there and hadn't shown his ugly head yet. "Hey…"

"What?"

"You still don't like Zoids, do you?"

"They're growing on me." Raven replied languidly leaning into the rail.

"I never got that." Van sighed. "You're so good at drawing out the full potential of a Zoid, at working with them, I don't know how you could dislike them."

"I just don't." Was the curt, unimagined and undeveloped response Van received for his consideration as Raven tucked a stubborn strand of hair behind his ear. "Sometimes I don't like anything."

"Why?" He tried once more resting the small of his back into the railing as the wind kicked up over the dunes and rattled through the fence bellow.

"I don't know." Raven mumbled. "I feel best when I'm fighting. I'm at odds with the world the rest of the time."

"Just when you're fighting?"

"No…" Raven struggled carefully. "When I'm not thinking like a human being I feel more like myself. When I'm working out, when I'm fighting, when I'm fucking…I don't get how you can think the world is such a magnificent place."

"Lots of love, hope, potential, miracles…" Van coughed, a little bowled over by Ravens casual declarations. "I guess I just try to see those things. See what I can do rather than what I can't."

"That's why you'd be a very moving campaigner and a terrible politician."

"Heh, I guess," he snorted.

"I hope they come up with something for us to do soon." Raven sighed folding his arms over the rail. "I hate being stuck in bases like this. I'd rather be in the middle of nowhere."

"Definitely."

"We should skip off somewhere."

"Huh?" Van mused from his stupor.

"Why not?" Raven smirked over his shoulder. "They won't miss us."

"Maybe but…"

"That River I threw you off the mountain into, near Reese's old village, isn't far off." He tempted. "It's not like Herman doesn't know how to reach us. Chances are they won't even notice till tomorrow."

"Well…" Van floundered. He wasn't nervous, he'd done worse, but there was some trepidation in him that reinvigorated the old idea. The last time he'd been in a river with Raven…what would he do this time?

"I'll go without you then." Raven breathed pushing off the rail.

"No you won't!" It was an order rather than a call at his bluff.

"Then you're coming with me."

It certainly looked that way.

* * *

Organoids, camp, stars, a ravine and nothing happened. Van would've known how to make the moves, would've genuinely wanted to without restraint, if it had been anyone else. Raven left him stumped. They ate, with what Raven had pilfered from the kitchens, dug their bare toes in the sand and curled up. Van wasn't sure if it counted as a date when by the fire Raven settled in his lap and fell asleep on him but he didn't redirect the affection.

The dark one was so light that when Van shuffled them both down, Raven lulled on his chest, he didn't have to exert a great deal of effort to move the smaller body. Great disturbance avoided Van decided to be happy with the warmth, the gentleness, the wilderness and leave it at that.

Should he tell the others about this? Did they guess? Was it worth bringing up if Raven was '_leaving_'?

Van dreamt about them, that was: Raven, Hiltz and Prozen. He was prostrate on the barren earth, sluggish and stuck while they crouched bickering around him. They were bloody, he was bloody, they were _eating_ him he realized.

Hiltz chewed his flesh, he got a glance of Prozen licking the blood off his thumb, and then Raven began the squabble over his mutilated body as Van watched, still alive, and helpless.

Prozen was bored with the proceedings, which was an all the more terrible element of the fantasy, of Raven and Hiltz arguing. They were fighting over peices of him. Van was groggy in the dream, it faded in and out dreadfully, till he was sure he was dying so utterly numbed to the pain and the blood loss it all appeared surreal.

"It's Raven's anyway," Prozen settled eventually, reluctantly contributing as he tore at the pilot. Van saw it only from his vantage point but he had some intelligence that the one-time emperor had apathetically, nonchalantly, broken some part of him that had as of yet been undamaged.

The dark one, straddling Van's knees, shot the withering Hiltz the smuggest look of satisfaction he could manage with the cruel upturn of his blood stained cheeks. The three of them, primly dressed, had an appearance of gorging at Van's body from the ruination of their fingers and faces with his juices. Done with teasing his opponent Raven forgot Hiltz and returned his focus to Van. His eyes ran over Van's but didn't meet, he may as well have been looking through him, and utterly contented Raven's hands dug forward at his chest, breaking and snapping in a way not entirely possible. It was grotesque and horrible what little of it Van could make out trapped but though there was no physical pain his stomach dropped with wicked anxious disgust as Raven reached inside him to wrench. The maverick plucked his heart and held the unattractive organ in his blood soaked hand. Van, horrified by his own continued tortured existence as a witness, saw Raven bring it to his mouth apple like. Lips spread- _crunch_- juice down his chin, satisfaction as his eyes fluttered, Van's distressed sound…

Van lurched back to consciousness hand fumbling at his chest instinctively for a wound that wasn't there. While the thumping in his chest assured his heart of its own fate. Still alive, he reminded himself, he was alive…

It was sickening to his stomach, he wrenched, coughing, shuddering.

The Raven who'd fallen asleep, childlike, in his arms was still there. His arm had spread beyond the sleeping bag into the sand, fingers flexing, lids twitching, where Raven lay by Van's side beautifully ruffled and lightly sweating in the increasing heat of the early sunrise that was just starting to peek over the ravine. Shadow had come to sit to just beyond the full stretch of Raven's arm, Zeke by their feet, much closer than Van had ever known him to sleep and the dark Organoid was not watching him curiously enough. Its head darted, snap and trap like, abruptly to crush a scorpion in the sand and Van wagered Shadow had been defending them in a similar way all night. Perhaps those crunching sounds had inspired the pagan cannibalism that had crept into Van's sleeping mind.

Van needed Herman to be wrong, needed his subconscious to be wrong, needed Prozen to_ right_ for once in his goddamn life…

* * *

Yeah I'm sure you've all been thinking it. It's the obvious conclusion: Raven, Prozen, Hiltz or Reese? Who are you putting your money on to be the next big bad?

Hope you guys have a stellar week. Please forgive the rush edit on this one.


	7. Chip, Chop, the Last Man's Dead

Hey Guys, updates may slow after this chapter due to exams.

CONTENT WARNING- skip the first scene if you'd rather now endure some semi-graphic V/R

* * *

Chapter 7: _Chip, Chop, the Last Man's Dead..._

Van hooked his arm round Raven's waist, heaved him back into him, as he bowed down to pepper the unconscious curve of his jaw with carefully planted kisses. Raven's legs drew up then kicked out in the blanket, his hand coming smoothly over Van's possessive forearm, frowning, yawning, slumping into the touch as Van rustled him forcibly into consciousness. Raven wasn't like what he'd dreamt, Van attempted to reassure himself, this young man wouldn't rip his beating heart out to sacrifice to his own darker hungers.

He slipped back down onto his side, leaning more fully over the imperial, lips running wetly down the gooey warm tendons of his slender neck to the delicate curve of his sharp shoulder where Van buried his face. Raven's fingers ran appreciatively, tracing, over Van's own curled tight round the smaller body and then trailed back blindly behind him to fondle senselessly for Van's cheek, to curl in his hair, to express all the permission and acceptance Van had assumed by inciting this. That made him more desperate, teeth scraping across thin skin, sucking, tongue writhing and Raven gave a giddy, sleepy, little moan.

"_Ah…_"

Van drew his earlobe between his own lips, teeth, ran his tongue along a particularly sensitive hidden swatch of skin just behind the elfin ear.

"_Hmm,_" Raven sighed, cooing, pleased and pliant in Van's hands for now.

Raven turned, Van heaved, kicked out in the sand. Van sat, legs crossed, pulling Raven to him while the Imperial's legs locked round his waist, arms crisscrossing behind Van's neck. Everything was loose, Raven's slacks sagged as Van's fingers found his hip bones for purchase messaging the bone structures in his hold while they kissed. The breeze slipping round them was cold, prickling goose bumps, but Raven was warm in his arms and Van felt powerful and stable when the other was so gentle. They cleaved to each other, Van's fingers rubbing idly at the exposed small of the other's back as Raven traced his neck, his jaw, through a procession of endless little kisses.

Raven didn't usually appear petite given how sharp he was, how loud and striding, but smashed into each other he felt tiny and weightless. Softness. Van could pretend like this that half his life had never happened: the war, the success, the Zoidians… he could imagine he was back at the Wind Colony, camping by one of the oasis's, dodging harvest duty with Raven. He could pretend things were simple, fresh and old world because this was. This was timeless. He fathomed there was nothing big on his plate, nothing nasty he was avoiding, just another repetitive day on a farm somewhere.

Van's tongue skirted over his own lips, wetting them, brushing Raven's. Raven's darted along the seam of his encouragingly, unexpectedly, given how little intention Van had to that end. The hero moved with it, suddenly intrigued by the idea, forcing his tongue between plush lips. Raven's brushed along the underside of his, hot, syrupy and wet. Van held him tighter.

He could've stayed like that.

Raven couldn't apparently. Apprehensively anxious, he arched his hips, thighs and calves squeezing round Van to motivate him to fluency of action. Van found them kissing harder, clutching him, hands straying under the over stretched fabric of Raven's old tee over his side, his navel, where he was especially warm, smooth, soft and tenderly vulnerable. Raven's tongue ran against his, sucked, he wanted something more and Van didn't know how to give it to him.

Raven groaned, hissed, and untangling his legs put his weight on his knees hands worrying Van's shoulders as they kissed. Van held his sides, traced his spine, and had his own back forced back onto the sleeping bag against the compacted sand beneath him with an _oomph_.

The maverick settled back on Van's thighs, fingers dragging down his bare chest, his navel, and the other seemed soothed by it all given the languid trance like nature to his eyes. Van had his suspicions about where his was going when Raven tucked his hair behind his ear with one hand and freed Van's aching arousal with the other.

"_Oh gods_…"

Sweet fucking Lord was the gist of Van's input. All it took was one fluid motion of Raven's bow string body he was sighing. When Raven's lips, teasing tongue, made contact with skin and parted to slip around him Van was convinced he'd died in euphoria. So hot…

Raven's palm stroked, his mouth tightened round the head, his tongue flexed into the slit leaking precum and Van was lost._ Fucksogood_. Raven bent, lips stretching, swallowing round what little else he eased into his mouth. _Fuckfuckfuckdon'tstop_.

"Hn," Van hissed, knuckles white in the blankets.

Paradise. Dirty, terrible, wicked Paradise.

Raven swallowed, flexing his throat, one hand stabilizing itself on Van's navel and he suckled deeper. Pressure and moisture, lips and tongue, Van was dying at the burning of his arousal. Raven drew back, lips dragging on skin, then sunk back down taking more and- _ohfucklord_. How'd he do that? Van had no idea how any one did that so well. Raven licked, inside his mouth, and Van felt every millimeter of it hypersensitive. He thought about it, the filthy implications of it, about being_ inside_ of Raven…

"_Aaah_…Fuck…"

The Imperial wanted it somehow and his fingers wrung Van's out of the bedding and brought his palm to the other's face encouragingly. Van groaned, couldn't resist the invitation and curled his fingers desperately in the thick locks. Raven purred in reward, vibrations running down the entire length of Van's arousal caught in his mouth and the hero moaned low and brutal. God it nearly hurt how painfully he wanted more of him. This made sense, why Raven felt at home here and in combat, it was all action-response motion. More instinct than thought when Van's vice grip in the other's hair began working the other's sweet mouth back and forth as Van tried to contain the urge to rock his hips what little he could with Raven's weight securing his position.

* * *

Van was still thinking about it, the way Raven licked his lips, after they'd snuck back into base. He was still thinking about it when he waved Fiona off and deployed back into Imperial territory with Raven to deal with some minor bandit uprising. Matter of fact he was still thinking about it two days later but now without a cutting tingle of senseless guilt.

"Van," Raven whispered, nudging him.

"Hmm?" He muttered dazedly.

"Prozen wants to call. He's got something."

"Yeah sure," Van sighed, bout fucking time…

Raven looked so lithe with his hand on his hip, feet and calves bare after their escape from his boots, and Van ran the gambit of his body from head to toe with his gaze as the Imperial pressed the device to his ear. The maverick caught him staring, met his eyes, and Van turned away running his hand over the back of his neck. He couldn't take this awkwardness.

"So what ya got?" Raven quirked and frowning sighed: "yeah, okay, I'll put you on speaker."

Van twitched back towards the young man beside him on the back seat of the Gustav as Raven hiked one leg over the other, displeased, and held the phone between them.

"Two possible locales." Prozen greeted blandly. "Hiltz should be at one of them but both of them will probably be monitored."

"So if we hit the wrong one he'll ditch from the other." Raven concluded shrewdly.

"Most likely. You there Flyheight?"

"Yeah," Van grunted, did it matter?

"You'll have to split up." The minister declared with authoritative finality. "I don't know how long we can guarantee him sticking around."

"Sounds dangerous," the Republican questioned, "what happens to the one who finds him?"

"You both have an Organoid and a massively powerful Zoid." Prozen answered. "Even odds with Hiltz. Text every twenty and if you get nothing the other will know to move in as a reinforcement. Surely you can handle it Flyheight?"

"We can." Raven spoke out cutting across the farmer's boy who was tempted to argue further with the dull politician.

Van didn't want to split up.

"What if you black out?" He hissed loud enough for both to hear. Screw restraint.

"Then he'll need you anyway." Prozen retorted other them both as the maverick turned on him glowering. Raven found that answer at least somewhat appeasing even if the discussion itself, the acknowledgement of his condition, was profoundly disgusting to his pride.

"He could fall out a window. I doubt Hiltz is staying at the Ritz."

"He'll have Shadow." Prozen argued.

"Don't trust an Organoid?" Raven cut nastily.

"What if he tries to psychologically manipulate one of us?" He tried vainly.

"It takes more time than Reese's." The minister elaborated. "It's subtle, insidious, Hiltz won't have the time or the means given how guarded you'll be."

Van knew from the start he'd be outnumbered in this alliance. The Prozens would always side against him given the history. What choice did he have?

"Fine." He groaned. "Where are we going?"

Nothing about it endeared Prozen, pathetic as he was, to Van. What man let their ill child run off to battle against a sociopath? Then again Van considered himself biased at current. He was so crassly jealous, possessive, lately he found Raven's favoritism insulting, enraging, even aware of the family ties he of all people should have appreciated. Raven would be well armed, well protected, maybe it was stupid to be so concerned.

"K's every twenty," Raven reminded flipping the clasp of his boot against his thigh, "clear?"

"I got it." Van grumbled stubbornly.

"Problem?" The imperial sneered aptly insulted no doubt having taken Van's concern for pity or some fatal lack of faith in his abilities.

"Nothing." He grunted.

"Fine." Raven scoffed waving him off as he turned.

Van's hand caught Raven's wrist as it flickered in range.

"_What?_" He seethed.

Van didn't know.

Raven sighed.

"I'm not kissing you." The maverick declared. "_You've_ been avoiding _me_. I'm not starting it."

"We never do anything unless I start it." Van snorted angrily.

"Yeah," Raven agreed yanking his wrist free, "because then you get disgusted by me right after and won't look me in the eye. Any wonder I'm not putting out? I want you Flyheight but I'm not going to grovel for it."

"I'm not disgusted by you!" He insisted lunging after the other's hand to claps it back in his, "I'm just… it's confusing…you gotta get that."

"Nope." The maverick cut shortly. "I know what I want. You better figure it out. Now I'm deploying before Hiltz fucks off so move your ass."

* * *

"Fuck me…" Van moaned as he secured the Blade Liger outside what had to be the shittiest looking mine he'd seen since he was fourteen. Did all bad guys just shack up in ex-horror houses? Did they get a special rate or something? "Come on Zeke let's get this over with."

If Hiltz didn't blow his brains out Van might do it himself. It was strange but Van had a sense that Hiltz was still alive in a way he hadn't believed Raven was still alive after the destruction of the Geno Surer or Prozen after either Death Surers. Really he probably should've been more suspicious of Raven and Prozen's ability to survive but Hiltz stuck out in his mind most prominently. Until Van saw his body he didn't think he'd ever believe it. He'd probably tuck his kids into bed every night till his eighties worrying that Hiltz might pop back in for revenge.

Few people had that haunting capability. Raven may have been wild but Van didn't ever concern himself with what the maverick might to do his children or family when they were enemies. Raven didn't take hostages like Hiltz did. Raven didn't use meat shields like Hiltz did. Hiltz, the more he considered it, screamed out for the top position as Death Surer. The only thing that bothered Van was why the Zoidian didn't try and work his Voodoo on Raven and Reese…

The mine was a mess but Van was sure someone had been here in a rush. There was oddly displaced dust everywhere in the field of his flashlight and Zeke was becoming increasingly twitchy as they descended. Electronics were live in this place, he noted, and given the condemned sign he'd jumped over that seemed inappropriate by about five years.

"Diabolical fucker…" He breathed to himself to reassure the silence.

Right now Prozen's Intel seemed pretty decent, however he got it, and Van didn't rule out a trap but he had a fifty-fifty chance of finding the Zoidian which was unsettling. Who would he rather find the redhead? Him or Raven? Always the hero Van actually considered maybe it was best he found him…

His phone buzzed in his pocket, first text, he slipped it out of his pocket to reply as agreed. To check in with Rae and-

_K + Sorry_

Van blinked, stalled in his gait on an uneven step and smiled.

Bad decision.

* * *

Van was lucky he didn't have a concussion he figure but whoever knocked him out had good enough aim to rip the world to black and leave him woozy when he woke. He knew he was a propped up before he was really conscious and he had begun to blink back into being when he was suddenly stripped of the privilege of oxygen.

He kicked, he was definitely restrained, that was the third nasty realization that met him. The second being that someone was ducking his head into pool of water with a vice grip on the back of his neck only to heft him up, choking and heaving for breath, a few seconds later.

"He's up Hiltz!" Prozen. Fuck.

Oxygen vanished before Van could catch his bearings.

"_Hiltz!_" The minster bellowed.

"I know, I know," the Zoidian snapped shortly holding Van by his scruff, "get your panties out of a twist. I'm just working off some stress."

"Where the fuck's Zeke?" Van managed brutishly sinuses clogged and airways tight.

"Out for tea and crumpets!" Hiltz snapped loudly.

"_Hiltz!_" The Imperial bellowed again, weathered, voice thin as he was stretched to the end of his tether. "What did we just talk about? _Alliances_. Remember? Don't kill the damn punk!"

"You can swear better than that." The Zoidian teased and dunked Van to demonstrate.

One rough jerk from the interceding, frazzled, minister later and Van was heaving for air.

"Can you at least pretend to be civil?" Prozen hissed under a fevered breath to the red head just out of Van's limited field of vision.

"No." The Zoidian grunted dryly.

"Lord," he sighed, "help me get him up!"

Van threw his head back, groaning, when his bound arms hit the back of the chair.

"Sorry about that," Prozen grumbled mildly gripping Van's jaw to tilt his head this way and that in some overview of the pilot's capacity, "he's gone a little mad with cabin fever."

"I'm going to kill you." Van warned harshly. "You double crossing Mother-"

"Let's not start with anyone's mother." Prozen cut him off straightening back to his full height as the Zoidian sulked back into Van's vision. "We're trying to help you Flyheight. We're on the same side."

"Un-_fucking_-likely." He snorted.

"Do…" the minister's hand worried his temple. "Don't they teach you proper adjectives in the Republic?"

"Watch out Gunther," Hiltz teased sharply, "your racism is showing."

"Don't get me _started_ on you." He shot back to the Zoidian. "Flyheight listen to me; we had to get you away from Raven_ somehow_. It unfortunately included a concussion because you're so trigger happy."

"What has Raven got to do with it?" Van cut.

"He's the fucking problem." Hiltz elaborated. "_Death Surer_."

"Oh you're both as bad as each other," the Imperial sighed relenting on his wish to enforce any kind of civility, "either way he's right. Raven's it."

"Funny," he groaned, "you pegged Hiltz for it."

"He can't know we're onto him," Prozen explained warily, "I needed Raven to think he's still got me wrapped round his little finger so we could talk to _you _but I'm telling you: he's the one."

"How can you be sure?"

"I remember him," Hiltz sighed pushing off the earthen wall to saunter closer, "tried to kill him before I went into stasis but I failed. Then I ended up in this godforsaken shit hole. I knew he was round playing Prozen after the Guylos incident but I couldn't remember enough about him to pick him before he was already in my head."

"Besides that," Prozen intervened, "those brain tumours of his have to be the transmitter cells. It makes sense. They'd look like tumours on a scan."

"So what?" Van chortled. "You want me to believe you two? I got no proof_ he_ wasn't a racist pig before the Death Stinger and if _you_ raised Raven how come you didn't pick up he was a Zoidian?"

"I probably did." He heaved warily. "That thing had me on a leash for years. My brain was butter when Zeppelin died and I didn't even know it was happening. Someone probably found Raven was Zoidian and he probably got_ me_ to make it go away. I suppressed a lot of information, did a lot of lying, for his sake."

"He turned both our personalities inside out and fucked us over," Hiltz spat, "for _fun_."

"Besides," Prozen interjected to pull them back from that precipice as Hiltz began to fume, "how do you think I found all those ruins? All the components to make the clone Death Surer?"

"Hiltz and Reese." Van snorted.

"Reese has probably already told you," he countered, "that she and Hiltz didn't come into it till after my first…_fake death_, for lack of a better phrase, and there was no one else. Who gives a child an Organoid a rare, valuable, piece of historical, scientific and military concern? Who sends a fourteen year old boy to war with a _Carte Blanche?_ Who builds a boy a Geno Surer?"

"You apparently," he grunted, but the logic was very rapidly falling out from under him. "What about Reese? She can read minds! Why doesn't she know?"

"Oh she does," Hiltz laughed, "she just isn't _allowed _to know. Funny how she took one peek inside his head with her bugs and suddenly she's friendly with him all of a sudden. He's got her under just like he had us under. He worked all fucking three of us after you woke his memory up."

"He's psychologically manipulating you too Flyheight." Prozen warned. "Or at least he's trying to. He's very vulnerable right now that the Guardian Force knows he exists. He's trying to turn more of you. You have the most influence and you're the nearest he can latch onto. He's likely already started to warp you."

"That's crazy!"

"Oh yeah?" Hiltz snorted cruelly. "Been doing things lately that go against common sense Flyheight? Doing things you don't normally do? Acting in ways you normally don't? Losing it over little shit? Yeah I can see that fucking face. He's been yanking you round. You like him less and less the longer you're away from him don't ya?"

"Feel like its your sovereign duty to protect him?" Prozen scoffed tiredly. "Because heaven knows he can't do _that_ himself."

"You know the only reason it's taking so long for him to rip apart your little clubhouse." The redhead sneered creeping closer. "Is because Elisi Lynette's already got you on her team. She's protecting your mind with that happy love-her-worship-her haze. Won't take him long to eat through that. Then your sanity is all human and that'll go right out the window in a matter of days if he's as desperate to survive as I know he is."

"Fiona?" Van mumbled. "Fiona wouldn't…"

Truthfully, he'd considered that. That Fiona too could be manipulating them.

"Listen to me Flyheight," Prozen sighed, "I could give you a million examples and I'll prove it however you want me to prove it but it's Raven and unless we do something you're going to have a third war on your hands in no time. He's not going to turn himself over and stop playing."

* * *

"You took your sweet damn time!" Raven called as he dropped from the Blade Liger and began that smooth saunter to the fire side.

_He can't know we're onto him_.

"Was a big mine," Van shrugged stiffly, "you find anything?"

"Was definitely there," the imperial affirmed tartly. "Typical he slips right through our fingers."

_He's using you to survive. _Hiltz repeated insidiously as Van encroached on the circle of light with his hands in his pockets._ He knows exactly what he's doing. You can trust me on that. _

"Hey," Raven breathed as Van stalled darkly, "you alright?"

"Hmm?" He twigged, chortling, "yeah. Just unnerved."

"Least Prozen's Intel is holding up." The smaller shrugged.

Was he really that much smaller than Van? Any more delicate? The pagan god…

"Hey," Raven snorted acutely up into Van's solemn face, "you going to sit or are you going to sulk all night?"

"Sorry," Van chuckled, tumbling down to slouch clumsily next to the Imperial. _What are you really? _

The maverick seemed expectant as he ran his eyes over Van, arms tangled round his legs, and when the Republican settled his eyes on the crackling of the fire, earthen and homely, he appeared to disappoint the Imperial. Sighing, grunting, Raven rested his chin upon his knees and seemed to slip into a displaced haze. Van had flicked a switch, denied that text with his own decision in counter to Raven's attempt to patch things up entirely. Having some kind of power eased him and his torn suspicions but he still couldn't shift the self doubt intrinsically placed upon him by Hiltz and Prozen with whom he was now co-conspirators.

It wasn't over yet. They still had a long way to go to convince him. Yet Van had agreed to keep his mouth shut on this, to give them a chance, because tonight alone had worried his foundations.

"Hey," he whispered sourly, "I've been thinking and… something's bugging me."

"Hmm?" Van tilted. "What?"

"Just..." Raven struggled with some obstacle of either appropriate wording or loyalty. "What if Prozen's the pilot?"

"Why would you think that?"

"Well, just, how it all lines up to me." He frowned thoughtfully. "He fused with the core twice and came out relatively whole and stable right? Hell, the second time he said he was the _Dark Kaiser_ which was basically crazy talk for _Death Surer_. If the Ultimate Death Surer's pilot was a kid and he was all grown up he'd probably think he was some super being too right? Sides it would remove the problem of why we can't find anyone they both knew who fits the bill."

_Apart from you and Reese_ Van rued.

"Doesn't seem like much to convince you." Van replied honestly. "What else?"

"Two things," Raven admitted, "he gave me Shadow then, when he wanted him back, he was able to revive him from the dead and make Shadow totally ignore me. Then there's where he came from."

"What do you mean?"

"What story did you get in the Republic?"

"Uh," Van shrugged, "no story. Just figured he was some rich imperial. Nothing more too it."

"Yeah well you were in the boonies," Raven snorted, "so I should expect as much. Story in the Empire concerns the whole Nyx affair. Basically Prozen was a disposed Prince, political prisoner most of his childhood, but when Nyx got their ass wasted by Zeppelin the Nyx prince was a baby, almost no one knew about him or saw him, then he doesn't pop up again till ten or twelve years later when we get Gunther Prozen. Just makes me think maybe Zeppelin found him in a pod and Prozen found a nice little fake identity to slip into. Zeppelin was always war hungry so making him more aggressive against the Republic wouldn't be hard and Minister for Defense is a great day job for the Death Surer don't you think?"

"Maybe," he relented uneasily, "you've got a good point. Where Prozen came from is hazy, I'll give you that."

"But?" Raven challenged.

"I've got no freaking clue right now." Van groaned. "I can't pick it. Maybe it's Hiltz, maybe it's Prozen, maybe it's Reese! Hell if I know. I need more solid proof to go on. You want it to be Prozen?"

"Fuck no," the maverick mumbled, "no way. I'd much rather it was fucking Hiltz because then I wouldn't feel so screwed over. It's just bothering me to think about it cause the more I do the more it could be either of them. I want Prozen to be good though. I really do."

He sighed, hands falling through his hair, and buried his face back in his knees. Van's chest heaved a little and with more thought that he would've liked he rested his palm between Raven's splayed shoulderblades.

"How's your head?" He tried to redirect.

"Killing me," Raven half joked half groaned.

"Anything I can do?"

"It'll pass." The other replied mildly.

_The fuck are you doing?_ He chastised foully to himself. _Who are you going to back up? Who are you going to believe? The fuckers you know are crazy and have spent how long trying to kill you or the guy who's on your side? Who's scared and dying and cares about you? _

Evidence or no evidence Van supposed he had an obligation to the people he loved. Prozen and Hiltz could have all the tempting theories in the world, worth investigating, but if this was Fiona they were talking about would Van believe for a second that she was capable of what he was accusing Raven of? Van would never, ever, line Fiona or Moonbay or Irvine up for this and take someone else's word over theirs. Why should Raven be any different? Raven had more than ample opportunity to kill him, to tie him up and screw with his head. The problem here wasn't anything Raven had done it was how much Van trusted him.

He'd figure it out. One way or another it would all come out in the wash and they'd find out who or what was to blame. Just because this time was a little more complicated without some clear enemy front line didn't mean Van didn't know where to draw himself a line.

Van folded his legs, decision made, heroics established and held his arms out to Raven.

"Come here," he offered with a jerk of his chin, fingers beckoning.

Raven snorted but that face fell into a smile and unfurling he planted himself in Van's lap both arms locking round the Republic's stout chest.

"Thanks for that text," Van muttered, "I'm sorry too."

"Good." Raven scoffed. "Slow jack ass."

"We should tell everyone." He breathed lazily. Maybe if everyone knew he wouldn't feel so clustered, maybe if everyone was there to watch them together Van could check his changes in demeanour, maybe it would be easier then when Raven died.

"No…" The imperial groaned stubbornly into his chest. "God no."

"Why not?" Van sighed in exasperation.

"None of their business for one," Raven grumbled, "two, it's not like it's going to matter in the long run anyway… we're not going to retire to a little house on the prairie. You'll go get married and have some runts. I don't have to be in the back of some woman's mind."

"Right now," he cut firmly, "it's just you and that's all I'm thinking about. Can't we just enjoy that and play normal for a while?"

"Normal by whose standards?" The maverick challenged smartly. "Because you're not normal and I'm _fucking nuts_."

"I can act like a civilian if I want to," he grumbled teasingly, "I think you're just worried you won't look tough anymore if I'm calling you _Baby _in front of the guys."

"Yeah." Raven asserted unabashedly. "You're not taking away my bad-assery when I need it most. I don't care who you are Flyheight."

"I couldn't take your bad-assery with pliers." Van snorted pressing him a little closer.

He won himself a little grin for that, half a smile, as Raven slumped his cheek onto his clavicle. Yeah, Van knew he was siding with on this until he got some damn good proof to do otherwise.

Even if Raven was part of the Death Surer did it matter?

* * *

1 Prozen's back story here is mashing up the manga and the anime suggestions

2 Yeah, I love Hiltz and Prozen right down to their rotten cotton socks. I couldn't resist having both of them in on this

3 Sorry for the lateness of this update. Its the exam season and this story's giving me a little hassle but you will get updates.


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